- Your college’s bookstore is likely gonna crank that price up ridiculously high. Unless you absolutely have to (like if you can’t find the book anywhere else or it’s something like a lab manual) buy (or rent) your books elsewhere.
- Thrift books is what I look at. It doesn’t have everything but I’ve found some cheap ones on there (I had a biology book that would have basically cost $140 at my college’s bookstore and found it for a little under $10 on Thrift books. A word of caution: if you find a deal you like buy it at that moment!!! Cannot stress that enough. I waited a day to buy a textbook and the one I wanted (the cheapest one) was already all sold out so I had to go the next option up
- Be careful when you’re renting your books. Don’t be like me in my freshman year when I was super nervous I wouldn’t get my book in time for the semester and I ordered it too early and had to return it 2 weeks before the semester was finished. Luckily, we didn’t even use the book much but that’s not the case for everyone.
-Don’t take a summer class if you don’t think you can handle it. For me (and I think this is most places) I have from June until the end of July. You have a lot to learn in a short timespan and then you have exams for those sections that are crammed in there. You really have to put in the time to study. It’s gonna go fast. For some classes, that might not be so bad but more difficult ones will be.
- Be wary about what you see on rate my professor. If you don’t know, it’s a site where you literally rate your professor from your school and people can see if they’re good or not. You can also leave reviews. The thing is, some people will rate the professor wrongly simply because they think they’re unfair or something. It might even be something they did and not their teacher. It’s supposed to be helpful but you can’t always take their word for it
- Attend class as much as possible. Obviously stay home if you’re sick but don’t just skip out because you’re tired or something. It wasn’t a big deal in high school if you missed out a lot (well, it probably was but not to the same extent). But in college, it can be harder to catch up and for my school, we have this policy where you can’t skip more than the days the class meets per week. So if you meet two days a week, you can’t skip out on 3 (2 in one week and 1 the next week) or else you’re dropped from the class.
-Find at least 1 person in your class (especially if you’re having trouble) to talk to. It’s helpful if you don’t understand something (or they don’t). You may even become friends with them
- check your school email regularly. Teachers will often send stuff out. Your school will as well (such as if you receive financial aid).
- If your school has you use IDs and you don’t wear it, at least carry it with you. At my school, there are certain things you have to have it scanned/checked. They’ll take a license but they prefer your ID
- There is NO shame in changing your major or having to drop a class because it’s too difficult. If it’s not working for you, talk to the advisor about it.
- You will fail a test or at least do poorly on at least one. It sucks but you have to learn from it. Make sure you’re going over your exams. Did you not understand something? Did you make an easy mistake? Look at your teachers corrections. They’ll help you. Plus, if you used a scantron, you should see if there were any questions that were marked incorrect but they’re actually right. If you didn’t erase all the way, it’ll be marked wrong
- Do extra credit when it’s offered. Even if your grade is good
- If your library has a book sale going on (like mine has books for 50 cents), looking and see what’s offered. You never know what’s there
- I don’t know if I’d said this on part 1, but your workload is going to be significantly different. I had psychology class where I had this very thick textbook with long chapters and we had to study a couple chapters for an exam each time. You’ll likely have a lot of reading and you have to be willing to put in the effort to work harder
- Understand, don’t simply memorize. Can you explain the process? Can you answer it correctly if it’s asked in a different way?
- Be prepared and keep track of your stuff. It doesn’t look good when you’re asking numerous times for copies of papers you’ve lost
- Find out what you need to know prior to class. It will make your life much easier. Do you need to know what a derivative is? How to balance chemical equations? For me, if I look up a class on the college’s website, I can see the description and depending on what it is, might say that students should have a basic knowledge of ____ or: students should be able to ___
If you know what you need to come in with, you can practice ahead of time so you’re not struggling as bad