College Life

[Epitome]

[size=1][color=orange]It's been quite a while since I posted here and today I was looking through my favorites and found it so I thought I'd stop by.

But to the topic of this thread: college life. I am a senior in high school right now and the end of the year is coming very quickly. I have been accepted to the college of my choice and I am extremely excited to go... or so I tell myself.

I realized just recently that in approximatley 5 months I will be off on my own. No one to watch over me, no one to tell me what to do, no one to wake me up in the mornings to get to class, no one to make me food. I will be alone. Now for some people this seems like it would be the greatest experience and can't wait, however in my situation it's very different.

I need guidance. I am the type of person that if someone doesn't really force me to do something, I probably won't end up doing it. The guidance and help of another person to stay on task is crucial for me. That is why I am probably one of the only kids my age freaking out about going to college.

I am very much what people would call a "momma's boy." I am the youngest in my family and I have always been treated like a prince. My parents have given me the greatest childhood imaginable. I pretty much got everything I wanted, did whatever I want, and when I did something wrong, punishments weren't bad at all. But now that I am going to be going away, all that luxury is gone. Besides the occasional carepackage my mom will ship to me, I have to do everything for myself. Everything for myself... and I don't even know how to do a load of laundry yet.

Now the reason for me posting this thread is because I would like some feedback from students about to go into their freshman year at a college, or college students that have already made that transition. Are there other people out their that feel or felt like me when their time was coming to leave home?

Thoughts please.[/size][/color]

[Aaryanna_Mom]

[QUOTE=Epitome][size=1][color=orange]I realized just recently that in approximatley 5 months I will be off on my own. No one to watch over me, no one to tell me what to do, no one to wake me up in the mornings to get to class, [B]no one to make me food[/B]. I will be alone.

I need guidance. I am the type of person that if someone doesn't really force me to do something, I probably won't end up doing it. The guidance and help of another person to stay on task is crucial for me. That is why I am probably one of the only kids my age freaking out about going to college.

[B]I don't even know how to do a load of laundry yet[/B].[/size][/color][/QUOTE]I am long past the age of attending college for the first time, but I can advise you of this much. If you are still going to be home for five months, go to you mom and ask her to show you how to do things like a load of laundry, ask her about simple cooking and planning meals. It isn't so much a matter of needing guidance since it sounds like a lack of experience as far as doing certain things. Knowing how to do things like that will make the college experience go a lot smoother in the long run.

[Farto the Magic]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS][COLOR=DarkGreen]Dude, if I could offer you some advise, I would say this: go to bed on time, and do your homework. If you do your homework, you'll go far. And go to class. I know guys who sit in their rooms until 3 a.m. every day, playing Call of Duty, or whatnot, and they generally don't stick around long. As for going to bed on time, its nice to have energy in the mornings, and throughout the day, as that's generally when things happen. And you want to be there for things.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[Guest Boy]

[size=1][COLOR=DarkRed]Oh man! I have a while to go before I have to go to college, and the thought really scares me. Yeah, I complain about high school a lot, but, I know I have it easy, haha. Thinking about things like this just make me wanna be a kid forever. But at some point you have to grow up and let go of your childhood. :(
You need to practice for the real world, and I guess college is the training grounds for most people.

I guess my advice would be... make friends. Especially some friends that have been in college for a year or two, because then they can help you out, and show you were to go, and make your first year nice and lovely... so you don't have to be so stressed on making it on your own.
I hope you do well! :)[/color][/size]

[Whiteblaze]

[FONT=Arial]I am finishing up my freshman year and it has gone well. I did not feel the way you do as I was about to begin. I went in with this idea that college is so impossible, and found out the first few weeks that it's absolutely doable.

Epitome, as you have stated, you will not find someone standing over you to make sure you get things done. This is the point where you need to be able to do this yourself. Self motivation and self discipline are two important factors in this.

From what you've stated I'm getting that you only do things when you are told? If this is so then you just need to understand that in life there are things that you will need to do and no person is going to "make sure" you do it. You will have to take it upon yourself to get them done.

If you know your reason for going to college and what you need to do to be successful then you will find a way to make that happen. Once you know what needs to be done, in the words of my older brother, "all it takes is doing".

It's a good thing you mentioned this laundry bit. If your school is pretty far from home, then you really must know how to do your own laundry. You will simply need to learn the basic things that will result in clean clothes that aren't shrunk, bleached, wrinkled etc. Whoever does the laundry in your household should be able to help you with that.

Also, since there will be some things that you will likely have to take care of yourself other than just school work, you would do well to find out what they might be and how to do them. You know, things you know your parents are leaving you to do. It's different for everyone so just talk with your parents and know what things you are responsible for. Financial aid for example, some students' parents fill out their forms and take care of that while others like myself are the ones who do it.

Learning to do things for yourself will help you take care of business.

*edit*
Everyone's bringing up some good points!

I want to second what Boy said about making friends. Befriending peopel who are in their second, third year will help you with advice and just ways to do well. All sorts of stuff. Even other freshmen who know what they are doing would be worth getting to know. [/FONT]

[liamc2]

[size="1"][FONT=Trebuchet MS]
Self control is critical. [I'll say this a lot in some way or another, bear with me.] Get a day planner [some Universities give them out free during orientation] and stick to it. Get an alarm clock and place it somewhere where you have to get out of bed to switch it off. Appreciate how important it is for you to go to class, people at uni will say otherwise and skip it, but that's the risk they're taking. Don't get sucked in, they'll be freaking out the most when it comes to finals.

Five months really isn't long at all. Aaryanna_Mom raised the best point though, get some recipes and start learning to cook for yourself. Learn while you can how to shop/cook on a low budget. If you assume that you can live on instant noodles [Sorry, [i]Ramen[/i]], you'll find yourself crashing and burning pretty quickly, ha.

I'm final year Bachelor of Biomedical Science myself and I can confirm pretty much what everyone has said so far. Make sure you have a schedule for your spare time, start practicing [sounds silly, but you'll regret it come exam time..] going to bed at a decent hour. Try for a solid eight hours each night for a week. It may be easy, it may be hard, but it's something you'll need to do. I myself have a pretty intense workload with practicals, case studies, tutorials and lectures filling up my week. It takes a lot of self discipline to remain focused on my wednesday [Uni 8am-7pm, with only an hour's break] and do some study and revision in the evening.

Another important part of discipline: Go to every tutorial, even if it's not summative and you don't get any marks for it. Those Honours students that are running those tutes [in my case at least] have done it all before and [i]know[/i] what the unit coordinators want in exams. They know what you need to learn and they'll often go the extra mile for you if you treat them right. It's a priceless investment of time.

Learn how to chill out and take some time for yourself regularly, otherwise you'll find yourself throwing your hands up in the air one day and saying "BAH! I'm just going to watch TV all day today and do this tomorrow"

....not a good idea when you realise the next day that the work you put off, is due at 8am...>.>;

If you have to work, get a job that suits your hours. I can't stress enough how important it is that your employment doesn't clash with your studies. If you skip one lecture to work "just this one shift" you'll find yourself skipping a whole lot of lectures and bumming second hand notes off your mates.

...which brings me to my next point. Make friends. Talk to people in your practicals or tutorials. It's awkward at first, but after a semester you'll be getting along swimmingly. Come third/final year, you'll have the ultimate web of people that can help you with [i]anything[/i]. Something people don't learn is that yes: plagiarism is bad [b]and[/b] stupid, but you can ask for help from your friends.

If you don't understand something, someone else is bound to know what's going on and can help you to figure out what [i]LacZ[/i] is and why it's so important to molecular biologists. Or something, ha.

Finally, there is a bit of a myth flying around when it comes to university, that it's "preparation for the real world" or that it's not "the real world."

Forget that nonsense. University is preparation for the workforce, but you're living in the real world [unless of course you live on campus in a dorm/frathouse or whatever :p]. You're going to have real bills, real transportation issues, everything. Living away from home [as you've just pointed out] is very much a big deal and a steep learning curve for the first couple of months. Studying full time [I have 24 contact hours a week] and trying to work enough hours to cover rent/food [Bare minimum of 12], while still allowing time to complete all of my personal study and required work, is a heavy task.

It's all worth it though. Don't let it intimidate you, there's a lot of fun between the study.

Don't overdo the fun, haha ~_^[/FONT][/size]

[Epitome]

[size=1][color=orange]I appreciate all the feedback from everyone, it's been extremely helpful.

And about what you said Whiteblaze, I don't only do things when I'm told to do them. I do my homework, I clean the house on a regular basis, do the dishes, etc., but the thing is, is that unless someone is there to kind of keep "pushing" along, then alot of the time I just quit.

A perfect example. I get out of school at 10:50 AM everyday and lately I have been working on a very large English project. Its worth like 85% of my grade for the 4th quarter. Now I told myself today that I was going to come home and work on it and try to get a good amount done to make sure that tomorrow in class I don't have to be doing as much, but now, I'm being the procrastinator that I am and responding to this thread on OB, and that's what worries me the most.

I am afraid that my normal habits for doing homework or schoolwork in general, will greatly affect my grades at St. Bonaventure. High school is one thing, but college seems like a totally different ball game. You can just glide your way through high school and you will be fine. You miss a couple homeworks here and there, have a bad test this day, it's really no big deal. But the way I see it, in college if you miss a homework, you are sick, or you don't too well on a test, you're screwed. You end up getting so far behind on work and don't understand anything that you are learning, and then you get screwed when tests, labs, and such come about.

To be honest with you, I am a good student too. But for some reason when I think about college, I think that it's going to be something that someone like me will have no idea how to handle it. I guess that's one of the main reasons I'm so nervous to go: I just don't know what I'll do if I can't.[/size][/color]

[SunfallE]

[COLOR=RoyalBlue]Everyone else has already given some good advice, but another thing to keep in mind and this is from when I got my degree in college...But if you are going full time and you are finding that even with being dedicated and doing your homework you can't keep up. Sometimes it can be a good idea to drop a class.

I've done this myself since some subjects are harder for me than others. Take English. It's much harder for me than other subjects and always seemed to require more time to do the homework. So anytime I was required to take it I always made sure to cut back a bit on the amount of classes since I knew I would need more time to complete the homework for it. So if you need to, don't feel like you have to finish a class just because you started it. It's not like you can't take it the next semester. ^_~

And another one, and this was a biggie for me. Starting a class only to realize that the teacher is a jackass. It's hard enough doing all your homework and studying, but to have an annoying teacher on top of that is no fun. After suffering through one history class with a teacher I positively hated. The next time I got someone like that I looked for the same class in a different time slot and switched. You can't always do that of course, but it's something to keep in mind.[/COLOR]

[visualkei]

[QUOTE=Whiteblaze][FONT=Arial]
If you know your reason for going to college and what you need to do to be successful then you will find a way to make that happen. Once you know what needs to be done, in the words of my older brother, "all it takes is doing".[/FONT][/QUOTE]

Right on. It didn't take me until my junior year to figure out what it was I wanted to do. I just knew I had to go to college. When I finally realized I didn't have time to lollygag around, I got to business, and I feel like an idiot for not taking college serious sooner. But, it gave me time to grow.

It's good that you realize and appreciate all the things your parents have done for you. Some kids don't realize this, and come to college thinking they are more than ready to take care of themselves, and fail. In your case, you can try to prepare yourself and plan ahead. Learn how to do things by yourself over the summer before you start college in the fall. Set priorities, and know what you want to accomplish (even if you haven't picked a major). Aim for good grades.

Another thing I think is good is that you're coming in with the attitude that it's not going to be easy. I think most people who fail are the ones who are used to breezing through high school, and don't realize the individual responsibility that accompanies college life.

[quote name='Farto the Magic']Dude, if I could offer you some advise, I would say this: go to bed on time, and do your homework. If you do your homework, you'll go far. And go to class. I know guys who sit in their rooms until 3 a.m. every day, playing Call of Duty, or whatnot, and they generally don't stick around long. As for going to bed on time, its nice to have energy in the mornings, and throughout the day, as that's generally when things happen. And you want to be there for things.[/quote]

Take his advice seriously. It sounds simple, but it's actually really hard for a lot of people! Just the simple go to sleep, do your homework, and go to class will keep you on top of things. I think it's so easy to be distracted by a friend, internet, or games. Don't fall into the trap of going to sleep at 3 a.m. because every other college student does it. You'll find that when exams come around, your sleep habits could make you miserable. And make sure you understand what's being taught after every lecture. Learn that stuff early so that when finals come around, it's just a review.

Keep a list of things to accomplish every week, including homework and living management.

GOOD LUCK, man.

[Guest K y a]

[SIZE=1][FONT=Arial]Huh. I guess I'm one of those kids that falls into the "let's get the hell outta here" category. I'm personally more than ready for college- and I still have another year of high school in store for me before I can even go. My advice to you, Epitome, is to learn you essentials before you go. Things'll be much easier if you know how to wash a load of darks. <<

As for not having anyone to care for you- that's life. It's something we've been told since junior high that we're going to have to face sooner or later (and I realize no matter what, it's [I]still[/I] going to smack you in the face when it catches up with you).

[I][COLOR=Navy]And on a completely different view point, there's always roomates (supposing you're sharing a dorm of sorts).[/COLOR][/I]

All I can really do for you is point out the obvious and wish you the best of luck.[/FONT][/SIZE]

[Whiteblaze]

[FONT=Arial]Epitome, so you do things generally, but you usually need someone to push you or you won?t finish the task?

Finishing your task is something you will grow and learn to do or else face a large pile of tasks that could have been a lot smaller had you finished some of them earlier. This is procrastinating in that you are not getting anything done until the last moment. It is not fun looking at a list of 10-12 things you need to do and not knowing where to start. Some people at school make this mistake a lot and wind up exerting themselves in a way they didn?t need to. Even worse then having to finish many tasks at once is not getting them all done. The consequences of your actions/ non-actions should motivate you to finish the tasks you start.

One thing I have learned about projects is that saying you are going to do a ?good amount? done is sometimes not a good idea. I?ve done this a few times. It usually just made me more likely to put off the work. What I found that works better is doing a little of the work each day until you are finished. When I tell myself I?m going to at least a little of my work then I am more likely to get around to doing it.

As other have stressed already, going to class is one of the keys to doing well.

Another thing that will help you do well is putting forth your effort. If you just barely do your work and study, just barely go to class then you will just barely make it. However, if you put effort into all you do, then you are at the very least trying and from there you can always improve. How much effort you put in is also important because more often than not that has a direct relationship with how well you do.[/FONT]

[QUOTE=SunfallE][COLOR=RoyalBlue]Everyone else has already given some good advice, but another thing to keep in mind and this is from when I got my degree in college...But if you are going full time and you are finding that even with being dedicated and doing your homework you can't keep up. Sometimes it can be a good idea to drop a class.
[COLOR][/QUOTE]

[FONT=Arial]I would say this is alright in only certain circumstances. You definitely don't want to make this a habit and have a whole lot of W's on your transcript. First of all, you pay money to take your classes and dropping a class does not necessarily mean you get that money back. In fact, this would probably only occur if you dropped within the first week like at my university. Second, a class that is dropped is a class you will have to take later, which means you'll have to fit it back in your schedule in the future. Lastly, it probably won't look good if you are dropping classes too often. Also, many if not all college programs have a limit on the number of attempted hours that you can take to complete a program.

A better way to handle this would be to try and plan your semester?s classes to where you don't have such a load. If there are certain subjects that you are not as strong in then try not to put all of those in the same semester or something like that. There are many ways to handle these types of classes as opposed to simply dropping them.[/FONT]