Extra tips and tricks for college

Okay, I can’t tell you how to live your life and succeed in everything, but I can tell you some of the things I wish I had done. As well as the things I did and benefitted from. Enjoy some miscellaneous advice!

First, try it out. This applies to everything. Try new hobbies cause you are curious, Try a new fashion style cause you think it is cool. Try your career field so you know how you feel about it. Try joining clubs and friend groups. University is this time in your life where it is socially acceptable to try everything and then quit without judgement. It is also the time where trying new career fields and giving them up is not a penalty against you.

Second, be intentional in how you sign up for classes. Class sign ups are a puzzle. I was happy to find the graduation requirement list for my degree in my first semester. I plotted out that I needed 124 or more credits, and most courses are 3 credits. If we break that down into 8 semesters, aka 4 years, that means 15.5 credits a semester are needed.

I struggle with free time so I aimed for 18 credits a semester and also took summer courses, cutting me down to 7 semesters. Of course you can’t do a half credit each semester (usually), so be ready to do maybe 2 semesters with 18 credits and then the rest at 15. For reference, 15 credits means 5 classes. I did a lot of 8 week courses, meaning half semester courses, so my workload at any given time was not super heavy.

Don’t agree to 7 am classes if you aren’t a morning person. Those were a last resort for me. I did my best to never have a class before 10 am and was mostly successful. Write out the times and days of your classes as you register and be sure the schedule in front of you seems manageable. I was a big fan of online classes, they worked really well for me. For my roommates, online classes could be stressful. So try one out and see how you feel. But the classes you should always have in person are the classes that you struggle with. An online class has less contact with the professor even if you need help.

It is important you pay attention to your writing skills throughout the course. Everyone needs to know how to be a good writer. Even a mathematician needs to be able to write a good email. Written communication is one of the backbones of every business transaction, so don’t disregard the required writing courses. Take a statistics course, yes even if you hate math and it isn’t required. Take a base level humanities class so you understand more about empathy.

Oh, and don’t be afraid to be confusing. Sign up for all those really crazy classes like pottery and history of warfare. Some of those classes might seem useless for your future career field, but the skills you learn can only be learned in university. Often I learned more from a professor than a course. The course is just what a book says, but the professor has done it. So even if you aren’t getting an art degree or doing pottery full time, maybe the professor of that pottery course has some advice on being a business owner and working with suppliers. What you learn in a class is not always going to be on the syllabus.

If you are past your first semester at that university, feel free to ask other students what their favorite courses were. Ask them who their favorite professors were and why. Those are the for fun classes you can take to fill your course requirements.

Set limits for yourself. I have had too many professors demand that I act like their class was my full time job when they were fully aware I have other courses to worry about. I got to the point where I had to tell professors that their courses were not my main priority, because I believe in honesty. A kinder person would have just smiled and ignored them. Oh well.  

Another piece of general advice is to try and keep as many options available as you can. Don’t agree to getting a hyper specific degree like a bachelor’s in the history of the early Americas. Then the problem is you have less job opportunities than say a bachelor’s in history.

I also think you should ignore foreign language courses unless you are getting a degree in a foreign language. You only get so many classes as a university student, and I do think being bilingual is a very important thing, university is not the only place you can learn a language. You will have so many other chances to learn a new language in life that don’t cost thousands an hour. So if there is a requirement for foreign language courses, do that and then move on.

If you have the means and the opportunity, travel in your time off. Go visit another state with that friend you made in Comp I, because you can. Sign up for the summer semester abroad and take for fun classes only. When you visit anywhere, it is fine to be a tourist but feel free to try and explore more. Go to the residential streets. Talk to business owners. My family always go to cemeteries because we learn more about the history of a place by how they honor the dead.

Avoid writing a thesis, those are hardly ever beneficial unless you plan on getting a masters or PhD. That is it, that is the advice.

Don’t trust Google. Google has always taken money from websites to promote some sources over others. If you have serious research to get done, look for academic websites like Ebsco. Your university should have some kind of scholarly article database, usually information for that will be on the library webpage. You can also try www.refseek.com.

Always start research for a paper way before the due date. Set yourself a fake due date for yourself. If you start every essay by researching and picking those sources, it will help build the outline of your paper for you. So if you need 3 sources, set a due date saying you need to have those 3 sources picked and read 3 days after you learn about the assignment.

If you hit a paywall when looking for an academic article, figure out who the authors are. Authors do not get any money from academic article websites, so if you can find that author’s email and request a copy of the article, they will often send it happily.

Make it a simple email saying who you are, what article of theirs you want access to, and why you want that article. Be polite and be willing to wait a few days. One of many reasons why you should aim to get your sources way before a paper’s due date. A quicker but less effective option is trying out Sci-Hub. Just google whereisschihub.now.sh because Sci-hub is always changing URLs.

I started most of my essays with research, not a thesis. I wrote the thesis statement only after deciding what sources to use. That way my thesis was tailored to my sources. Then I decided the order in which I would bring up the articles. My rule of thumb was for 3 or less sources, each would be used for a different subtopic or section. If there were more than 4 sources I condensed to 2 sources for each subtopic.

There will always be exceptions to this rule. But it is good to have an idea of where each point goes. I would also sometimes pick my quotes before writing. I tried to choose 2 to 3 quotes from each source and then also put those in order. I built my essay around them, I just put transitions to each quote and then let myself go on a tangent until it connected to the next quote. Because essays are just tangents.

If you need help with formatting rules, Purdue Owl. That is it. The entire piece of advice.

If you are using Microsoft word and a document gets accidentally deleted, open Microsoft word again and click on File. Then go into info, click manage versions, and your document will be inside unsaved documents. In Google Docs it will be in trash. No matter what you delete, whether it be an email or a file, there is going to be a way to recover it for up to 30 days. Just find the trash or recycling bin and retrieve it. If you have a large project with lots of large files, back them up. I have a lot of cheap flash drives I got from college recruitment fairs and anytime I had a large project I would dedicate a flash drive to it. Sometimes old school back ups are helpful.

Do. Not. Buy. Your. Textbooks. Until. After. Your. First. Week. Sometimes the textbook will not be used in the class all that often. Other times, you can find a free pdf online. Be ready to talk to your classmates, ask if any of them have looked for a free version of the book yet. Share if you have. Ask the professor if the version is important.

I honestly would just google the title of my textbooks with the words ‘free pdf’ added on. 8 out of 10 times I would find it after 10 minutes and download them onto my computer. The times I couldn’t find it, I would go to book resale sites like Thriftbooks or WorldofBooks and find a copy for $10 or less. No need to pay $40 or some other ridiculous amount.

Dress for the indoors, not the outdoors. Outside is only a few minutes, 15 at most. But you have to sit inside in that lecture hall for an hour. My university is always way too warm indoors. So I dress in layers. Warm enough for the walk over to class but easy to shed the layers for the hot classrooms.

Write down dates for everything. It can be a note on your phone, a text to yourself, a planner, a digital calendar. Writing down the date helps you remember it. Plus a reminder being sent to you the day before and say of is a bonus.

On your first day of classes, plan on getting to class early. This gives you time to get lost, to pick a seat, and to maybe meet your professor. No professor is going to grade based on what students they like more of course. But they will tell you about extra curriculars if they like you. They will be happy to write recommendations if they know you. Some may even be connected to job opportunities.

And no, you don’t have to sit at the front of the classroom. People say you do, but I get distracted at the front. I feel anxious and uncomfortable. So I am more productive and focused if I sit near the back. Figure out where you are most productive and aim for that section in every course.

Take a charger with you everywhere. There is always an outlet and your phone or computer are bound to die on you. Be prepared.

Carry a water bottle. Carry tampons and pads (if you use those). Carry bandaids.

Don’t cram for an exam the night before. It doesn’t help unless you have some kind of eidetic or photographic memory. Instead, study as you go. The night before an exam should be dedicated to resting. And right before the exam? That is when you cram study the areas you struggle with. As soon as you get the exam, find those hard questions first and do those. After that, trust your gut. Your first guess is usually the right answer. I had to outlaw myself from going over my answers cause I would convince myself I had been wrong even if I knew I wasn’t.

Don’t skip classes unless you know class is useless. I had classes where the professor just read out loud from the textbook. Every single test was online and every assignment was online. There was no class participation, and I had the textbook. I did not attend because it was not helpful. But if a class is only 10 minutes of useful information and 40 minutes of nonsense, you still need to go. I would just do homework and read my textbooks during the nonsense sections. No one says you can’t do homework in the middle of class. If you have a professor that does, they seem to be confused on their role because university is voluntary. You get out of it what you put into it and nothing is mandatory.

Something my dad told me before I started my first semester was that if you show up to class every day and do the work assigned on time, then the exams and tests won’t matter. He was right. I went to every class, I did my work early and often asked professors for advice before submitting assignments. Because I did all of the classwork, as long as I got a C or above on a final exam I would have an A in the class. If you aren’t a good test taker, this can be a lifesaver.

Walk to class. As long as the walk is 15 minutes or less and you don’t have some kind of physical pain walking, then walk to class. Parking is often more effort than walking is, if I was physically able, I would walk to every class rather than deal with university parking lots. Wear tennis shoes if you are walking. They may not be as cute as those ankle boots, but they are good for your feet.

Find balance. Don’t just party all the time. Also don’t let yourself never have fun. You can study and get good grades while also going out and having fun. Now is the time to learn your limits and figure out how much fun time you need while still being productive. So go party if you want, but you can also socialize in craft clubs or lunches. Only drink and do substances if you are totally on board. Same goes for intimacy.

You don’t have to be friends with your roommate. It is okay to even hate them. But be kind, be understanding. Spend time trying to set expectations for each other on the first day. Pull a Sheldon Cooper and write it all down if you need to. Make a freaking poster with rules for both of you and put it on the front door (facing inside).

Even if you are terrified about having a roommate, do it. Even if you only last a semester before requesting a single dorm. Learning how to share space with another person is an important life skill. Even if it is uncomfortable and awkward. Do it.

Learn how to communicate. Set boundaries with your friends and professors. Be upfront when you are having a bad day. Tell others when you need space but also when you need help. And you are human, you do need help. So ask for it.