6 Things you need to know before going to college

Get prepared for all the craziness of college by following these few tips. These will be so helpful in getting you to maximize your college experience.

Time management is a necessity

College is hard and procrastinating will just make it harder on you. Manage your time by maintaining a schedule with all the work you have as well as classes, extracurriculars, jobs and of course, social life.

If your schedule is balanced, you will find yourself much more successful.

You don't want to be stuck up late trying to finish assignments at the last possible second hoping and praying that it will turn in fast enough.

Make friends with the people in your classes

Having a balance between friends in class and friends out of class is so beneficial for your own success and theirs.

The friends you make in class make it so much easier to create study/homework groups and you can all learn from each other.

This can honestly be more beneficial for all of you, in some cases, rather than going straight to a professor or a TA.

Never be afraid to ask for help

There are no faculty or staff members at any college that want to see you fail. Your failure is their failure too so they will do anything to help you succeed as you are going through your college career.

Your advisor is a great resource to utilize when you are trying to figure something out with your classes or just your major as a whole. They have gone through the process with countless other students before you and just talking to them can help them get to know you better so they can do more to help you.

Make time for you

Your mental health is so, so important as you go through college. Self care is going to be huge for preparing and getting through exams and projects.

Set aside some time each day to relax, watch a show, go out with friends, whatever distracts you from what is looming over your head. Just for a little bit of course, then we get back to work.

A clear head space is extremely helpful for taking on assessments and presentations.

Use everything you have paid for

College is expensive and there are so many resources you pay for each year that many students never use.

The health services are a huge one, especially right now with everything going on with Covid-19. Your physical health could be what will make or break your semester.

Other awesome resources include the library, computer labs, on-campus gyms, and the free services like Supplemental Instruction (at least that's what my school calls it) and counseling.

Go make use of whatever of these you may need, and maybe your school has even more to offer!

Call home!

Your parents are always going to be happy to get calls from you. They miss you and want to hear how you are doing. Believe me.

Your siblings might have crazy stories to share with you about their crazy friends at school. Maybe you can plan a visit with them, either you going home or them coming to visit you so you can show off  your awesome school!

Keep in mind, your parents have gone through the stage of life. Maybe not the same school or the same major, but they have gone through all the steps to maturity including the crazy drama you might be dealing with and hey, who knows, they might be able to offer some good advice for how to handle those situations. 

You know from the application process that college is a crazy thing and you want to be as mentally prepared as possible to take on these next few years as you go from being a young adult to actually living and working in the real adult world.