So this should be obvious right? Wrong! Most of us never even think about the chaos that will happen when your phone crashes on you. This is me telling you to think about the chaos! My 2nd week of college, in a different city, away from my parents, guess what happens? My phone crashes. Literally deletes everything, and I mean EVERYTHING off of it. Because when iPhones get too close to storage capacity, they do that apparently. So here I am, by myself, with every important contact I've ever had - including my entire family, previous employers, scholarship offices, friends from out of state, and friends from back home - just gone. Disappeared. Never coming back, despite the two and a half hours I spent at the Verizon store with the Verizon lady who said she could fix it and then couldn't. Out of all the 200+ contacts I had in my phone, the only two numbers I had memorized were my mom's and dad's, and only because they've had the same cell numbers since they first got them at the end of the dark ages. I don't even know my home phone number. (Don't judge, I've moved more times than I can remember). So yeah. Buy the apps that let you save everything to a cloud storage drive. Write the super important ones down someplace you can keep up with. Trust me, it might take a few minutes away from your busy life (or Netflix, because let's be real here...), but it is so worth avoiding the nightmare you'll have to deal with otherwise.
2. Go meet your professors.
This is a big one. Sure, you can sit in the back of the classroom all the way through graduation and never establish a relationship with a professor and be just fine. But going up to your professors and introducing yourself, and going to see them during office hours gives you such a leg up. They can show you how you need to study for that class, help explain a question to you in person that you might not have gotten in class and didn't want to ask in front of 200 people. Plus they'll be more way more likely to help you out at the end of the semester when you are a fraction of a point away from the next letter grade, because they know the extra effort you've been putting into their class. Most of the time they want to meet you and get to know you. (They also write GREAT reference letters.)
3. Not all people know how to wash their own dishes or do their laundry.
Just go ahead and teach your roomies how to do it. They can't help that they were only children.
4. You don't have to have your books on the very first day of class.
Or the first week. Or maybe even at all... And you ESPECIALLY don't have to buy them from the campus bookstore. Unless you just want to spend an extra couple hundred dollars. Shop around at local bookstores instead and online, and usually if you can wait a few weeks, you'll probably find much better deals.
5. Living with people who aren't your family is hard. Like REALLY hard.
You're going to have to make sacrifices, and have to learn to let things go. To them, leaving that plate on the kitchen counter for a week might be no big deal because that's what they do at their house. Establish rules for your shared space in your dorm room or apartment as soon as you move in. It might seem silly, and some things might just seem like common sense, but trust me - you're going to have issues down the road if you don't.
6. Your mom is your lifeline.
Seriously. Call her more often. You might just find that she actually knows what she's talking about, and has some rock solid advice and wisdom for you.
7. The sooner you get involved on campus, the better your college experience will be.
I waited to get involved. My mentality was that I wanted to just focus on school. And while school is important (DUH! It's why you're here in the first place), being involved is JUST as important. I felt so left out my freshman year, because everyone I knew was super involved in something and making all of these friends, and I barely knew anyone. I seriously missed out. I joined a student organization the next year and met some incredible people, but I really regret not doing it sooner, because I missed out on tons of friendships.
8. Take it easy with the Netflix.
Netflix is incredible. We all know that. But it is so easy to start a series, and then the next thing you know you look up and it's next week, and you haven't even looked at your textbook for that exam you have tomorrow. Set up a system. For every 45 minutes of Netflix (aka, one episode of Grey's Anatomy), study for 45 minutes. Research says that studying in 30-60 minute increments is the most beneficial to you, with 30-60 minute breaks in between.
9. Making new friends is hard.
Everyone makes it seem like coming to college and making all of these new lifelong forever friends is the easiest thing in the world, and people are just walking around begging you to be friends. That's so not true. It's really hard to go up to a random person and try to become friends with them. But don't be afraid to try. Ask the girl sitting next to you in your history class if she wants to go get Starbucks. Or lunch. Or whatever. Just put yourself out there, and see what happens. (The first week of class is like the golden week of friendship making. Everyone talks to everyone and people are way more likely to go to a lunch with some random person. Take advantage of this week and make lots of friends.)
10. Its okay to feel overwhelmed.
College is hard. And for a control freak like me, when things don't go exactly as planned (they almost never do) it's easy to get stressed out and not see the big picture. Here's the big picture - college is more than just the grades you make or how many friends you have or the number of different organizations you're involved in. It's about life choices. It's about learning how to be an adult, taking care of yourself, and preparing for your future. It's about preparing for success, but also learning how to handle failures. It's about finding out what you like and don't like, and what your beliefs are. It's about learning to balance responsibilities with fun, and sometimes it's just about just getting through.
