Starting College: What You Should Know

There are lots of different things to think about when starting college.

Whoever is going away to college for the first time of course cannot possibly know exactly what to expect once they are actually at some college far away from where they went to high school and having to adjust to the different place and every part of life.



Some people's first and biggest concern is about making new friends, and if you are concerned about that I can't blame you, because that was my biggest thought when I was starting college.

What you need to realize is that the bigger the size of the student population at your school, the less you need to be concerned about making new friends when you are starting college.

Only people who will be attending a college that has fewer students than the high school they went to, or fewer than 500 total students, might have reason to wonder about making new friends at college. Even those who go to a small school can find new friends in the local area.

One aspect of preparing for college that I didn't think much about before starting college is getting good grades in college. I thought that since I was an OK student with an 86 out of 100 average high school GPA, that I would probably be fairly similar at college.

Boy was I wrong!

On the first test in four of my five classes during my first college semester, I did much worse than I thought I would before the test. I realized I needed to make some major changes.

Even though before starting college I had no clue about grades in college, I needed to learn as fast as possible how to succeed and get good grades in college, or my financial aid award would be in danger.

From that point forward I put together the various lessons I learned about success in college grades into a system filled with specific strategies to leave fellow students far behind, and it works well, as I was on the dean's list (at least 3.6 GPA) five of my last six undergraduate semesters and earned a perfect 4.0 GPA in my full MA degree.

By taking into account that even before starting college part of preparing for college is preparing to win the race for good grades, that raises the possibility of success tremendously.

So unless you are going away to college at a very small school, it is very likely that you will make new friends very quickly, probably even before the end of the first day, as was true for me and thousands of others.

You know why?

Because almost everyone else in that situation of starting college is thinking those same thoughts also, wondering about making new friends when starting college and hoping to do so easily and quickly.

So by giving more of your attention to getting good grades in college starting as early as possible as you can, you will be far ahead of your fellow students who only think about grades as an afterthought.

And that's how when starting college you will be so much closer to having the best life possible in college: with the best time management for college you'll have friends and a social life while at the same time getting good grades.

Don't sweat starting college, it's natural to be a bit nervous, but you are likely to make friends very quickly the larger the college is that you go to, so don't forget to focus on your studies and grades.