Must-Knows For College

While it might be a little early, it’s good to start thinking about college, if that’s what you choose to do. No matter when or where you’re going, you need some information. This will help you stay on track and on top of it all. It gets stressful, especially your first year if you have no one to tell you what to do. So here are my must-knows for college, both online and in-person, community or university.

The first big to-know is reading. I know you may think “well, duh”. No, I mean READ. You won’t get an ‘A’ by skimming or just reading once. You need to read, highlight, and analyze. Even if you think you don’t need to, you do. That science class? Read, highlight, analyze. It’ll help in retaining information, organizing notes, and so much more.

Open-note tests are harder than they sound. It’s not like highschool, your notes MUST be organized and color-coded. Sometimes, you might have to paraphrase an entire chapter. Take the time to study for the open-note ones.

Rate-My-Professor.com is a life saver. It saved me from horrible classes with horrible teachers. It also gives you insight into what the class is going to look like and the workload. For example, the teacher could have 4.5/5 stars but the workload is heavy. You may not always have the time for that, so now you know to look for another class/teacher.

Make connections! Get to know your counselors, teachers, anyone of authority. When the time comes, they’ll be more inclined to help you. Do you need that extension? Well the teacher you chatted it up with will give you all the time in the world. It helps in almost every situation and you get taken more seriously.

Internships. Number one thing that I believe colleges need to do better with is internships. You get that experience in college so you can move on. A lot of people will still need that experience and build up their resumes after college. Now, you’re ahead of the game with 1-4 years of experience under your belt. This makes it easier to find good-paying jobs straight out of college.

Do not take in-person classes 5-days a week. This will stress and burn you out fast. Take a Friday or a Monday off. This way you can catch up on work, go out, reset, and anything else you want to do. Trust me, I refused to have classes on Fridays. Life saver.

There will be work before school even starts. Check your classes constantly, a teacher may post something. It most likely will be reading chapter 1 of a textbook, but still… I know it sucks but you can fall behind if you don’t do the work.

Scholarships and grants. Easy way to help ease the pressure of college debt. Apply to everything, even if it seems ridiculous. Good, ridiculous ones are ones from chain restaurants like Burger King. Relieve that money anxiety!