If you are anything like me then you are worried about your first year of college. A couple months back Nashoba had a presentation for the seniors about what freshmen year of college was going to be like. They had a Nashoba alumni come in and give tips that would have been helpful when they entered college. They shared many great tips and gave me a lot to think about over the following days..

However,as always, the majority of seniors seemed not to pay attention to it or really give much thought  to the information presented to them. With this in mind, I knew an article with important tips was in store.

As a note, being a senior, I do not know the first thing about the freshmen year of college. The tips I will be presenting will be those that were given during the presentation and other tips that I have found online when doing research for this article.

Tip One: Get to know your college. For most of us we will be living on campus. You will be spending most of your time there so it will do you wonders to figure out where everything is and where the best spots to hang out with friends are. Also, it helps to know where your classes so you will be prepared for your first day.

Tip Two: Make sure you get to know people around campus. On a high school level this was easy but for college, it is a whole new world. Get to know people and put yourself out there. Meeting people during the summer and going to events like orientation will make getting to know people a lot easier.

Tip Three: Stay organized. There is actually two parts to this tip. Time organization and being organized with your stuff. In college you will have a lot of free time. This free time must be organized for the assignments you have to do. In high school you are constantly reminded of school assignments that you have to do. From what I have found out is that college is not like this. Usually if you are given a paper you will get a due date and will never be told about it again. In high school you are given class time to write and prepare the paper/project. In college you will be expected to do the project/paper outside of class on your own time. You must organize your time to make sure you complete your assignments. A lot of professors (not called teachers really in college, weird I know) will not accept late work. They will tell you “Too bad, so sad.” and turn you away.

Now you also have to be organized when it comes to your stuff as well. Unless you are very lucky, you will be living with a roommate in college. College door rooms (at least at the school I will be going to) are tiny. Your living space will be tiny and you have to share this space with a roommate. Do not have a messy room. There will be nothing more angering then having a messy roommate who can’t keep his/her things separate from yours.

Tip Four: Go to class. You are probably going to be paying over $20,000 a year to go to your school. Make the most of it. Some teachers do not have mandated attendance and it might seem  like a good option to skip. If you go down that path and you skip you are going to repeat and skip again. After a while you will miss so much class that you will not be able to pass any of the test or do the  projects. It will not be worth missing your classes for any reason except being sick. Again you will be paying tens of thousands of dollars to go to school, make the most of it.

Tip Five: Have fun. College is going to be so different from high school. Go have a good time. Meet people, go to events, participate in new experiences. College is possibly going to be the best four years in you entire educational career.
College might seem scary and it is in some regards, but if you follow these tips then you can hopefully lower your stress and anxiety. Try not to worry about it and have fun.