Nice tips everybody. I finished my first year too...
There's no one single way to "have a good college experience". I didn't live in a dorm, so I didn't see college from that perspective. It also made it a bit more difficult to join the social scene.
I have made many of the mistakes in the first year. I also could've acted much better than I did.
So I guess it's a good time to learn from my mistakes, so I'll try to summarize them.
If you run for an executive position for SAC or something similar, it's important to talk to tons and tons of people. Just introduce yourself and greet them. You'll meet tons of chicks, you'll remember them and they'll remember you. I didn't do that enough and didn't get elected, although I was real close
Always remember that you go to college to study. That's your primary goal there. You're paying money for it. You want to be a professional (at least I do) and your marks reflect your work ethics. I forgot about it, got distracted and my average is about 20 percent less than it should've been.
Sleep regularly. It's damn hard to do. It requires organization and patience. You need to plan your work and do it beforehand. Only a few people do this, and they are the ones with 4.0 GPA. I fell behind and my life started to really suck. I went to sleep at 2-3 am, cause I was trying to finish the current assignment for tomorrow. I handed it in, but was falling asleep on the lectures. The assingment sucked, cause I didn't have time to review it or I ended up not going to the lectures to finish the assignments. I always had a ton of homework weighing me down, because of this, I felt life sh1t even when I was going out. Hard to feel confident when you know you're not doing your best. It's also hard to enjoy going out and doing extra curriculars.
Also, when you don't sleep, you never have energy to exercize. This caused me to gain about 20 pounds of pure fat
I'm only starting to lose weight now.
Try to fit your lectures into the first half of the day. This is personal of course, but at the unis I know, a lot of extra curricular activities happen after 12:00 and you don't want to have calculus at the same time. Having to get up early also keeps you in check all the time.
Don't use "routines" to meet people at college I mean stuff like Mystery Method... Don't be afraid to convey interest. Just go up and say: "Hi, my name is Pete, what's yours? Nice Mary, what are you taking? Why? What do you wanna do after? Do you like it? What clubs do you do? What do u think the most interesting thing to do on campus?" Sure, you don't ask her out at the first time, but I bet she'll wave and say hi next time she sees you.
Organize your own "invite only" party Instead of waiting for somebody to invite you, get to know enough cute "maries" (see above) and invite them next time you see them. It's gonna be either a dorm room or somebody's house. People usually have no problem bringing 10-15 bucks for food and drinks. And voila - you're popular and you're hosting the parties. You get to pick the people, people depend on you, you have the power. *evil chickle*
You could make your own booze All you need is sugar and that bacteria... Mix it with enough juice and people are drunk.
Try at least 15 different clubs Go there, get to know the executives, remember their names, help organize the events. 15 clubs will have about 100 people in the executive. They are the most active people on campus. Once you know them you know everybody. And obviously you'll get to know the "members" at the events too.
Get your books a month before the classes start and read them Simple as that. Pretty much anything except calculus, including physics, chem and bio can be read by yourself. Just read it cover to cover. You won't understand everything (or maybe you will), but it will make it much easier for you to learn for the rest of the year.
Keep exercising and eating properly At least I have no problem with food. My mom cooks extra healthy. But I forgot about exercise during the year and gained 20+ pounds. Exercizing goes with sleep.
Find out about scholarships awailable and apply early. Or you'll be biting yourself in your ass at night, like I do, cause a girl with a GPA lower than yours got a 4 grand scholarship
Start sending out resumes for summer job in the winter Or at least start preparing for a summer job in the winter. I didn't do that and now I'm sitting jobless when my buddies are working.
Make your budget and calculate how much money you need. Include partying and going out, multiply this number by 2. Add 2 grands for "emergencies" At the end of the year, you'll still end up going over the budget with your credit cards maxed out.
I don't know what else to add. If you don't make the mistakes above, college will be one hell of an experience. The problem is that people will self sabotage themselves into not obeying these rules.
Cheers guys, nice thread.
