Freshman student problems arise in huge numbers because newly converted students make trivial, common mistakes that could have been avoided.
We’ve articulated these mistakes and advised each. Read this and send it to your friends who are planning to go to college – it’s important and very helpful.
Common Mistakes
Being afraid to make new acquaintances.
Do not be shy and close-minded, because studying at university is a time of new friends and bright impressions.
Try to get to know the people you will be around the next few days. Later it will be more difficult. Talk to classmates, learn about their interests and hobbies.
And it won’t be superfluous to acquire useful acquaintances among university employees: lab assistants, graduate students, and methodologists will be able to ask for help, especially in the first year, when everything is new.
Ignore circles, clubs, and sections
The life of a student is not only lectures, labs, coursework, and exams, but also entertainment and interesting activities. So do not limit yourself to studies – sign up for a drama club or a sports team.
But don’t overdo it. Another common mistake freshmen make is to sign up for as many student communities, clubs, and so on as possible. It’s cool if you want to be a part of it all – but don’t forget that if you do, you won’t have much time to study.
Freshman problems: sign up for all clubs and sections
So choose a couple of clubs and attend them at your pleasure. This will be enough to meet interesting people and diversify student life.
Breakaway from the crowd
Life outside of studies happens and not only in circles and sections. Spend time with your classmates outside of college: go to the movies, clubs, and cafes. Informal settings bring you closer! The main thing is that it was not to the detriment of learning.
Not be able to manage your time
Time management – a very useful skill not only in student times but in life in general. Many students’ problems arise from the banal inability to manage their time. If you know how to properly distribute your leisure time, you will be able to effectively do several things in parallel and not be late.
But do not try to catch up with everything at once – even a very organized person is rather limited.
Eating improperly
Eating yesterday’s sandwich in the morning, eating burgers for lunch, eating chips for dinner – it all sounds great and tasty, but the stomach won’t say “thank you” for that. It’s very easy for a student to get digestive problems, especially gastritis.
In short, good food – yes! Harmful snacks – no!
Mistakes of nonresident students
Taking a lot of unnecessary things with you
I remember I lived with a girl who brought three large pillows (not orthopedic, otherwise there would be no questions) and ten boxes of shoes. I was surprised by that then, I’m surprised now.
Yes, moving away from your parents is stressful, and you want to bring some homeliness with you. But you don’t have to go to extremes and lug half your house with you. Unnecessary things will just take up the already small space of the room.
Make a list of the most necessary things that you really can’t do without (a lot of pairs of shoes are hardly part of the list, right?), and bring only those things. The rest you can bring later if it makes sense.
Relying on someone else for domestic matters
When you study in another city, you have to be more independent willy-nilly. There are no parents to do the grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, and cleaning up you have to do it all yourself.
If you’ve never cooked before, don’t try to develop croutons straight away – start with simple dishes: porridges, soups, side dishes, and so on.
To learn how to choose good products in the store or market, go there with someone from their parents – learn a lot.
With cleaning and even easier – help at home and quickly get used to keeping your home clean.
Don’t plan your budget and misallocate your money
In the first years, it is especially important, because it is unlikely that you can combine work and studies. That leaves the scholarship and maybe the money your parents will send you – so you don’t waste it on the first day, you need to calculate your budget and control your expenses.
Don’t know how to do it all? No problem: Use a budgeting app of some sort, like Zen Money or Coinkeeper.
Mistakes in learning
Not taking notes on lectures
Copying or photocopying them from classmates is great, but not very convenient or reliable:
- Not sure that a classmate wrote down all the important information;
- When you listen to a lecture and take notes, you are already beginning to memorize material, and thus it will be easier to prepare for tests and exams.
Skipping a lot
There are no class supervisors here. If you misbehave, skip lectures, no one will call your parents. You are responsible for yourself, which means everything is very serious. If you decide to skip a lecture or seminar, be my guest. But you’ll have to deal with the problems that may arise because of this, too.
Be afraid of tests and exams
If the credit week or exams were as awful as they say, only a few people would graduate. I used different helpers like EssayAssistant when things went wrong.
Study the school way
This is one of the most serious mistakes first-year students make. In school, we get used to studying in one format, but in higher education, we are required to study in a completely different format. To quickly switch and meet the new requirements is no easy task.
What you need to keep in mind in the first place:
- Now you have to learn on your own. That is, on your own. No one will spell it out for you – if you don’t get it right away, be kind enough to figure it out for yourself later. From now on you are fully responsible for your studies.
- Studying in higher education requires more diligence. You will have to spend a lot of time at the university. Instead of classes, it is now like two 45-minute classes. Sometimes in one day, you can have four or five pairs. When only yesterday you had 3-4 lessons for 45 minutes, it will be difficult to get used to this regime.
You have a lot of information to absorb. This volume is not always easy to cope with. Therefore:
- Start studying study materials before you start school;
- Get help from tutors or additional courses if you have gaps in some subjects;
- As early as possible, learn the most important thing they teach you in college – how to search for and structure information.
Do not rely on textbooks. At school, you could find all the answers in a textbook. At university, in the first place, you will need the lecture notes and additional sources from the library and the Internet. It is especially important on the exams – often teachers want to hear exactly what they used in the lectures, not what is written in the textbook. Be careful.
Don’t hope to learn everything on the last night. Never, you hear me, never expect to learn on the last night what you should have been learning for weeks and months. If someone tells you it’s possible, and “I know someone who’s done it,” don’t believe it, it’s just a story. Spread your workload and study throughout the semester, not in your final hours.
Don’t take your first year seriously
Freshman year is not preparation or a warm-up. The subjects in your major are not on your schedule yet, but that’s no reason to relax. Now you get a general knowledge base, without which further it will be banal difficult.
