Free advise for freshman college kids

[equate975]

Well my sister is starting her freshman year so I thought I would pass some advise I learned on to you guys too.

First, DON'T BUY BOOKS... for the first week ;) At least goto the first class to see if you ACTUALLY NEED the damn book. This happened a lot to me before I figured this out. Especially in science classes, lots of my teachers don't use the lab manuals and you cannot return them. Also a lot of times in classes they make you buy a $80 book that you will end up using 1 chapter out of, usually in addition to a main text book. I have a couple hundred dollar pile of books that I either never used and couldn't return, or just used for one stupid chapter or something. Just friggin borrow someones book if thats the case, or just photo copy it.

Also, don't buy new books. I still have no idea what the point of a new book is. Its cheaper to get used ones, and chances are your going to trash it anyways. I always look for the most used book with the most writing and highlighting. Saves me a lot of work and a lot of the key concepts are already highlighted for me.

2 hours classes BLOW. I have yet to find anyone that likes 2+ hour classes. At least for your first semester maybe take one to see how you like it. But I wouldn't pack your schedule full of them, they get old QUICK. The only 2 hour class I liked was a psych one, mainly because 1/2 way though the teacher would give us a 15 min smoke break, class didn't ever feel that long.

Last, finding a good teacher is KEY. If you have a shitty teacher that is uninteresting you are constantly going to be tempted to skip, and once you start skipping its hard not to once you get used to having all the open time. www.ratemyprofessor.com is an awesome sight. I used it last semester and I got a ton of good teachers that made the classes interesting. Goto the site and try to get as many good teachers as possible then build the rest of your schedule around that.

Anyways good luck guys.

Feel free to add some advise if anyone else has any.

[Lodsin]

I'll be the first to ask. Where your sister is going to college? :pimp:

Thanks for all the info. Not sure it will be that hard to figure out though

[MattE30]

Buy and sell books online. I use amazon or half.com. Cost less, and I usually get most of my money back.

[gazellebeigem3]

Buy and sell books online. I use amazon or half.com. Cost less, and I usually get most of my money back.

Wordx10000 to this and everything above. The dealers on amazon usually have a pretty good return policy too. Plus you can get teacher editions which is choice for math.

[Rigmaster]

WTF?

You guys are really disappointing me.

My advice:

Get as much waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles and drink as much beer as humanly possible.


Don't fail out of school, or get lots of D's and F's.


That about covers it. All you need to know in 2 sentences.



Oh, and if you want to be serious for a second, don't drink and drive- I'm serious about this.



Ohhh, and I advise you to learn how to spell advice correctly if you ever plan to be taken seriously when you try to give it to others..... ;)

[E30 Wagen]

Unfortunately, if you don't buy books for the first week, all the used ones will have been bought up, and then you will be forced to buy new. At least that's how it worked for me.

My advice: you have nobody to blame but yourself. If things get tough or you seem to be getting the short end of the stick, then you simply have to try harder to earn that A.

[backtrail69]

I have 2 more weeks of my freshman year and my addition to all of this is...you actually need to study for tests. This isn't high school, they don't hand out As..

[euroshark]

The skipping class part is crucial... don't fucking do that... lol

[Mike325]

I have 2 more weeks of my freshman year and my addition to all of this is...you actually need to study for tests. This isn't high school, they don't hand out As..

Your still in school?

[Jscotty]

Ok.. First of all- Tell her to bring a bucket. Don't tell her exactly why she needs one but tell her to bring one and she will know in the first 2 to 3 days if not in the first week what its for.

Secondly, if you buy used books early on and you find out that you are not going to stay in that class, then you can still sell them and get all of your money back. When I was in college they allowed us to post ads and flyers in the student union and on the bulletin board at the campus post office. Being that all of the other used books will be gone, you will be able to post an ad on the wall in your favorite building and charge the exact price you paid for the used book or you could even make a couple of bucks profit. Also, one thing to be careful about when buying used books is that the editions tend to change on a regular basis so even though the information may very well be the same, you won't be on the same page when the teacher asks you to read the first paragraph on page 77. Sometimes that can be embarassing or even costly when you fail a homework assignment because your answers did not corrospond to the assignment.

Third, make passing your classes a full time job after school. Visit your professors at least once a week to touch base with them to see how you are doing and what you can do to improve. If you do that and you do not miss a single class you will not fail. The mistake that most people make is that they start attempting to negotiate for extra credit when they are failing. But the key is to work towards getting extra credit early on so that in the unlikely event that you find yourself in academic trouble, the teacher has no problem cutting you some slack.

Forth, make friends with upperclassmen through school activities. They are the best source of information when it comes to finding good teachers, advice or needing help getting around off campus. The school will probably have structured and organized mentoring but you need to build a network of people who can get you into places that most freshmen cant go. You would want to put yourself amongst people who can pull strings and use their influence in areas where you can't.

And lastly, never trust someone that says, "trust me". College is full of criminals, scam artists, and abusive people who will otherwise take advantage of people on the street if they were not in college.

[rwh11385]

first off, are you the one to be giving advice about college? (haha, i'm j/k, don't spend an hour replying)

second, tell her to suck off a junior in her first week. she'll always have the hook up for booze. actually, you don't have to tell her, she will anyway

everyone wants to meet new people and friends in the first 6 weeks - take advantage of it. most people will be somewhat settled in after that.

GO TO CLASS!!!

have fun, you are only in college once as an undergrad. my first year was a great one

[Jscotty]

have fun, you are only in college once as an undergrad. my first year was a great one

Actually you can party and have fun year after year. All you have to do is just go to your local college campus in town and hang out at the student union. Well.. maybe not. I was in college long before 9-11 and it was much easier to pretend to be a student, hang out, occasionally attend classes, etc. and nobody would ever know that you were not even registered at the school. Also fake college ID cards were relatively easy to make in the late 80's into the early 90's because that was right around the turn of technology era when laser printers and photo quality inkjet printers were more readily available to college students. The consumer technology caught up with the professional technology and it was possible to forge almost any document and make it official looking.

But now in a post 9-11 world I am sure that student ID's have an RFID chip where campus security can probably wave a wand into a crowd and pick out the person without a college ID.

[b*saint]

buy the book and photocopy them, then return them saying they were the wrong books.

[MikeE30325i]

buy the book and photocopy them, then return them saying they were the wrong books.

who wants 800 photocopied pages?

[Jscotty]

Not only that but the cost of photocopying will actually cost more than the book.