Yesterday we looked at the top 5 things freshmen don’t need to stress about. Today, here’s the top 5 things that freshmen do need to think about.

There’s some things to college that freshmen shouldn’t worry too much about, such as trying to not look like a freshmen, or fitting in perfectly with everyone. But, there are some things that freshmen do need to worry about, and should prepare for them before college starts. Here’s 5 things that you should have in the back of your head so that you’re ready for them this fall.


1) Be prepared for a drastically different life. Whatever life you’ve lived for the past 18-ish years of your life, throw it out the window. College is nothing like high school. Nothing at all. You will be living on your own, will be responsible for yourself, won’t have anyone to tell you to do your homework, can eat whatever/whenever you want, do whatever you want, and a whole lot more. Essentially your life is now in your own hands, and it’s up to you to make it into whatever you want. For many freshmen, it means freedom for the first time in their lives because those parental figures who have been the boss of you are now in the form of phone calls and skype sessions. We’re stressing this because it really is a big change, so think about how you’re going to adjust to your new life and how exactly you’re going to motivate yourself/survive on your own.

3) High school gossip? Not in college. Without pointing any fingers here, some of you were probably
“gossip queens” in high school. Something happens over the weekend, and then magically the entire school knows about it by lunchtime on Monday. College is the first step towards the real world, and for the most part people do not want other people spreading their own personal business. If you know that you have a big mouth, it would be better off left at home. It will get back to people that you’re the one spreading their gossip, and this is going to turn people against you. In high school it is one thing, and people are immature; but this is college, no gossip here.

4) Social scene is 10 times better. The most mind-blowing part about being a freshman is the social scene. Parties, hot people everywhere, events, gatherings, friends, girls, guys, alcohol, etc is going to blow you away! Be prepared for an amazing time in college! However, this doesn’t make the list by itself though, as it’s pretty obvious that college has a good social scene. Rather, it makes the list because of #2 in this article. Imagine that “studying” and “the college social scene” are both your friends, but that they hate each other. You’re cool with both of them, and they both want to hangout with you, but they won’t hangout together, and you’re forced to choose between them at times. The only way to make them both happy is to find the right balance between the two, and we really suggest that if both friends want to hangout at the same time, you choose your friend “studying”. That is, unless of course your friend “social scene” has something going on that you can’t miss (insert winky face here).

5) Time management. Now going in chronological order, this plays right off of #4 on this list. The fact is that freshmen want to have a good social life and also get good grades. In order to have both of these, you’re going to need good time management. There’s a lot of free time in college, but it’s also very easy to waste that time doing pointless activities such as reading the Facebook mini-feed wall or coming up with the latest Lebron James championship ring joke. As we said, school should be a priority, so that means that if you want to have time to party/socialize every weekend, you need to get your work out of the way during the week. Invest in a calendar whiteboard, and then figure out how much work you have, when exactly you’re going to do it, and stick to your plan!

Check back tomorrow for our advice on how to handle each of these issues, written with input from our team of college writers.

(Photos by University Unions, FC Gaylor Photography, under Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0)

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