Nothing ever really prepares you for the actual college experience. The autonomy the student is suddenly given to govern his/or her life can be frightening and exciting all in the same breath. It is frightening in that what you decide can set the course of future events. And also the fact that you can only blame yourself when things go wrong. But we cannot leave out that this is a time when you cultivate friendships and live vicariously without the constant scrutiny of your parents. This is the exciting part. But all kidding aside it is a lot to get used to but not impossible to get through.

If there was any advice I could offer future college students it would be to first get a good adviser, someone that you would have confidence in to discuss matters concerning your academic development, and other matters as well. It would also be a good idea to keep in contact with that advisor even if they give you another advisor because they would be able to give you a recommendation in the event you were applying to graduate school. When I was in college I did not have a good advisor to start out with but then on top of that they kept switching advisors on me so I did not have a foundation with which to fall back on. Therefore I was not comfortable in discussing personal issues that could have affected my academic growth which also resulted in the counselors not giving me the information I needed to figure out what courses I should take and when I should take them.

Secondly, I would tell future college students to remember that the way they studied in high school would not necessarily work once they entered college. I found that out the hard way, especially since I was taking science courses. I realized that I did not have a format that went step by step would lead me to success. It was difficult but what I eventually ended up teaching myself how to study. In high school I always waited till the day before or two days before an exam to actually go through the material. I would then memorize by heart my notes and anything in the text book that was worth memorizing in the event there was an essay question. At the time it worked well, my report card was filled with A's but once I arrived in college this approach was not going to work. The material was just too great for that technique to even work. My new approach was to study every day by incorporating the notes I took in class with the notes I wrote for myself and then doing problems everyday until I new them by heart. And then finally on the day before the exam giving myself a mock test to see how much I knew. This insight into studying was not achieved without great suffering on my part.

My experience has been that once you have these two items in place you will find that everything else falls into place also. It should also be pointed out that colleges have many facilities available to aide students in crisis management if your having a problem coping with an issue and academics, like tutors for example, if you are having difficulty with a subject. Future students should find that once they settle in and get use to their surroundings that university life is not as formidable as it once seemed.