Advice for college freshman?

[shadowling]

I posted this in another forum and i got a lot of great and often funny advice but this forum has a lot different group of people so i thought i would post this here too. Well as the subject says I just graduated from high school and in august I will be embarking on the adventure of living in a dorm. I was wondering if any of the older wiser forumites might have advice for me and the other freshman here about how to survive in the world. I would love to here anything you've learned.

[Kits]

-Don't go into class still drunk from the night before. You WILL smell like alcohol, and someone will notice.
-Tape Recorders are your friend.
-Don't get a job at a bar, too much temptation.

[Angie]

Ramen is your friend.
When people offer to bring the beer, accept, and then HIDE(and keep) as much of it as you can.
Mooch rides off anyone, it doesn't matter how cool your own ride is.
Never say no to free drugs, even if all you do is sell them to some sucker later.
Don't lend things. To anyone. Ever. You will never get them back.
Same goes with money.
Go to classes and suck up to EVERY teacher. Brown nosers get everywhere in this world. Don't be afraid to munch those nuggets!
If you're too lazy to shower, DO NOT febreeze yourself. Rub yourself top to bottom with a fabric sheet.
Roomates are pure evil. Even the "good" ones. Trust nobody.

More to come as I try to remember the chemically induced haze that I called "post secondary education"

[ZapRowsdower]

Ive never been to college but one of my HS teachers would kill me if I missed the oppurtunity to tell someone of the amazing powers of the Hawiian shirt.

...so there.

And that drunk one too, thats good.

-ZR

[Angie]

Don't get a job at a bar, too much temptation.

Don't get a job at a bar if you're WEAK is what she means. I worked at a bar 4 nights a week for 3 years. The tips were awesome, I came away from college not a penny in the hole with a new vehicle.

Prioritize: what's important to you? Popularity means sacrificing money. Partying means sacrificing sleep. Grades mean sacrificing partying. Sleeping means sacrificing EVERYTHING. There's plenty of time to sleep when you're dead.

[reva]

but i like sleep! (as a fellow soon-to-be freshman)

advice i've been given by other people so far:
-don't forget to bring a pillow
-get a security box/lock box to keep money, prescriptions, etc. in
-3-ring binders are easier to organize than notebooks

[sneaky ninja]

Wear sandals in the shower.
Don't leave laundry unattended. Not even in your dorm where you think you can trust most people.
Be a good sport when you get pranked - and never back down from a prank war

[Kits]

For one who wants to choose the party option:
-Get a job at a bar. I was a fresman when I was 18 and my manager got me into all the bars "as long as I never drank at his bar"
-While going out at three in the morning to break into the tennis courts of an apartment complex might seem like a good idea, it's not always a good idea.
-Go to the smaller bars. There's always more interesting people there.
-Try everything at least once. This is your time to party and have fun so do everything you can, from bungee jumping to jello shooters.
-Never, NEVER drink most of a bottle of Jager in one night. No matter how tough you may think you are, you can't handle it.
-Pedialyte=Best. Hangover. Cure. EVAR......if you can keep it down.
-If you think you're in love, you're probably not.
-If someone asks you to go streaking, decline. Just decline.

[StruckingFuggle]

- You think you'll meet new and interesting people. You think you'll have all these great experiences. You'll think dorms will have such fun activities! You'll think you really should stay in one! .... Keep in mind, you're paying to do so. Keep in mind, these are all marketing lines.

- Do any and everything in your power, if you go to the dorms, to get no roommate.

- Talk to your teacher. Many times, some frendliness can get you leniency. My philosophy prof. was a pretentious asshole who appropriated the class to abuse it, and he'd mark you down a full letter grade for two absences, unless you were documentably very sick .... and yet, I participated, and asked things after class ... then would sleep through one, walk in with a paltry excuse the next meeting, and he'd just shrug off the absence. In hardcore attendance classes, this helps a lot. That, and extentions. Hell, my term paper was extended to No Need To Turn It In!

- Be prepared for a lot of noise. A LOT of noise. When you're trying to sleep at 2 am, someoen else things "bwee! I'll set off my AIR HORN!"
.... unfortunately, you can't kill these people.

- Meal plans! Palm off meals for better food on unsuspecting other students. Because your cafetorium will suck.

- Learn to function short on sleep. Invest in a good alarm clock.

[Cyrus]

- Don't drop the soap......

Wait, wrong situation....

[mikehendo]

Hey Strucking.. campus food isnt THAT bad.. It is something to live off of after all.. and shadowling, I will add my list at a time when I am not so tired..

[Emperor Justin]

I'll second the comment about sandals..
Also, college isn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be. I've pretty much walzted through all my classes with minimal effort and maximum grades. Mostly As and a few Bs. So maybe sacrificing study time isn't such a big deal.
I'll also second the "getting buddy-like with the teach". Both my English teachers, My Education teacher and my Business teacher were very palsy with me. My english teachers just didn't even bother giving me the final.
"You get an A. Go home"
My Education teacher was willing to move my grade up by 4%, giving me the A i needed.
And my business teacher just said I could come in whenever and turn in the work. i only showed up to class 5 times the whole semester.got an A too.
In High School, it was busy work. Bullshit. In college it's more...learning the rules. You can get an A by doing surprisingly little work. However, I actually LIKE most of my classes, so reading is fun for me. And I know most of this stuff already anyways.
Good luck!
Sandals!!

[Dark Nexus]

1

In the event of shared bathrooms instead of communal... for your health, KEEP IT CLEAN.

You'll be thanking yourself when everybody else in the dorm is stuck in bed with the flu, falling behind in courses (if you didn't have to go to the hospital, it's not a good enough excuse to get out of assignments) and in no condition to party.

If they're communal bathrooms... well, the sandals in the shower is about the best you'll get there.

On that note, if your roommate so much as SNIFFLES, treat them like they have the plague until you're sure they're healthy. The flu, cold, etc. can spread like wildfire through a floor in a dorm, even without communal bathrooms.

2

Figure out if your program is a workload one, a thinking one, or both. If it is a workload one, and you were one of those people who didn't have to work in high school, you NEED to develop good study habits RIGHT AWAY. You WILL fail courses like that if you have bad work habits.

For the thinking ones, just make sure you do the work cause it's the best way to actually learn it. It just won't be as time consuming to do it as with a workload course.

What Emperor Justin said most certainly does NOT apply to all programs, or even all courses with a program sometimes.

3

If you're going someplace where a jacket is worn through the colder months, keep one with you when you go anywhere. Even if you're visiting a friend on the next floor up. People WILL pull the fire alarm on what they figure is the coldest night of the year. I got stuck outside for awhile with bare arms at -30C one night because of this one.

4

Not all cafeteria food sucks!

But it's almost guarunteed that at least some of the food there will. Probably at least half of it. Talk with others in the first few days to find out what sucks and what doesn't, and stick with what you know.

From my experience: Pasta is hard to screw up, but pasta sauce isn't. Anything that requires talent and/or experience to cook properly won't be, like steak. On that note, meat generally gets overcooked. if given the choice between rare, medium, well done, etc, pick at LEAST one closer to rare than you normally would.

5

Any biology course is actually chemistry, any chemistry course is actually physics, any physics course is actually math, every math course is actually all calculus and any calculus course is FREAKIN HARD.

[Tomahawk]

[quote="Dark Nexus";p="359721"]From my experience: Pasta is hard to screw up, but pasta sauce isn't. Anything that requires talent and/or experience to cook properly won't be, like steak. On that note, meat generally gets overcooked. if given the choice between rare, medium, well done, etc, pick at LEAST one closer to rare than you normally would.[/quote]

I've had too many BAD pasta meals in my college's cafetaria to let that one go... think of lasagna where the lasagna leaves (are they called leaves?) are still hard, spaghetti that barely bends, and sauce that made you wish you had plain spaghetti without sauce.

[Gowerlypuff]

Try to gauge the difficulty of your course. EJ said his was easy and he could do minimal stuff, mine was nigh on impossible for me, and it involved far too much thinking and working out (but then, it's what I signed up for and I passed).

Watch out for finals, people throw stuff at you. It's generally sticky/flour based.

Do not underestimate the power of caffeine.

Join a club that you've always wanted to, or you'll regret it. I should have joined archery/battle practice more.

Learn another language.

Try and get a room with an en suite. It's the best thing ever.

If your room comes with a 100Mbit internet connection, USE IT (but don't upload too much, they're WATCHING you).