Avoiding the Mistakes that Sink College Freshmen
Want a frightening statistic? Fewer than 60% of entering college students earn a degree within six years. Many drop out and never earn a degree. Here is how to be sure that doesn’t happen to you.
1. Be certain you understand that college will require greater effort, more self-discipline, and a higher quality of academic work than high school. “Be prepared” is more than the slogan of the Boy Scouts.
2. Mom won’t be there to tell you to get a good night’s sleep, but she was right, you need one to maintain your health and perform at your potential.
3. The strongest beverage you should drink during the week is coffee.
4. Drinking excessively, even on weekends, is not “part of college life”, as some folks would have you believe. Heavy drinkers frequently fail to complete college.
5. Beware of procrastination. Keeping up with your assignments, especially your reading and your major papers, will make your life less stressful and result in better grades.
6. Use a lap top to take notes, revise notes, and write papers. Save everything on your hard drive and back everything up on a jump drive that never leaves your desk (and therefore can’t get lost).
7. Lots of students “bite off more than they can chew”. Be careful of the number and difficulty of the courses in which you enroll until you have had time to adjust to the academic rigor of college.
8. Working while in high school may not be a big deal, but college will demand more of your time. Thus, you should not, under any circumstances, work more than 20 hours a week.
9. Lots of freshmen try to “suck it up” instead of getting help with academic, social, or emotional problems. Don’t be embarassed. Don’t try to tough it out. Get help immediately.
Just faithfully adhere to the simple rules above and use your common sense, and your odds of success in college are high. Remember, unless you’re majoring in physics or engineering, it’s not rocket science.
Dr. Casper Poodel is an education writer for an organization which produces websites on topics which include online colleges and accredited online degrees.