Twenty Tips for College Survival (And Excellence)

I completed my formal education in 1995. I do not regret a moment of it: not the long hours, not the lost sleep, not the teaching multiple jobs while going to school full time, not the classes I took. That being said, when I think about all the years I spent in school, had I been a little wiser, I could have benefitted even more.

Wisdom is not the same as formal education. It takes time, it takes experience. Here is some advice that has the potential to help in ways where I missed out.

1. Don’t Take Your Parents for Granted. Your parents may nag you. You may feel as if they don’t understand you or your situation. But they have already acquired the kind of wisdom that I know I lacked.
2. Grades Are Not the Goal. In a few years, you won’t remember most of your grades. If you got a grade you didn’t want, be sure that you learned from the experience. I have said this to my students countless times: focus on learning all that you possibly can, and the grades will follow.
3. Use the Internet for Education (not just entertainment). If I had a resource like the Internet while I was in college, the world would have been a different place for me. I spent hours and hours in the library with stacks of books, reading just to figure out if the book was the right book. Being able to search for something and find the right resource in seconds? Wow.
4. Life is Full of Stressors. Stress results from conflict. Without conflict, there is no progress. It’s as simple as that. It’s normal to feel stressed and tired once in a while. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
5. Manage Your Funds. As a student putting myself through college, I was always strapped for cash. It was always a crap shoot on whether my card would clear (and a sigh of relief the times that it did). That being said, I worked multiple jobs at all times, more jobs in the summer and holiday breaks. As a result, when I finished my bachelors, I had zero college debt.
6. Sleep Once In a While. Research has proven that sleep is essential for health and brain function. Make it a priority to get adequate sleep. I won’t try to claim how many hours per night. People are different and have different needs. You probably know your own requirements, so do what you can to meet them.
7. Ask for Help. There’s no shame in asking for help. If you can’t find the answer on your own, don’t hesitate to ask your instructors or (dare I say it?) your parents. Probably won’t get the answer to the specific question, but I always benefitted from the advice I received.
8. Write Things Down. Your brain isn’t a perfect storage device. Write things down. The physical act of actually writing something down helps with retention. If you write things down, you’ll also be a more organized.
9. Don’t Feel Like Studying? Go to the library. When you’re surrounded by people who are studying, you’ll feel inspired to study. (And, being the library, you probably won’t have anything else to do.)
10. Embrace Challenges. Challenges are opportunities to learn. Even if you can’t overcome the challenge, you would have still grown as a person. Many times, I had a plan for a paper but, when I started doing research, I realized that the conclusion I wanted to make was unsupportable. I loved that feeling! (Then I often wished that I hadn’t shot my mouth off with people prior to doing adequate reasearch.)
11. Don’t Blame Others. You are the student. Learning is your responsibility. Particularly once you’re in college or the workforce, no one is going to spoon-feed you. The resources will be made available and you will be expected to do the rest. It’s called being an adult. The sooner you embrace it, the more successful and, more importantly, the happier you will be.
12. Go to Class. If the class is boring, recognize that as a the choice that it is. See it as an opportunity to improve your ability to focus. If you already know the material, look for the things that you overlooked before.
13. Be Grateful. Grateful students are happy students. No matter what situation you’re in, there’s always something for which to given thank. Rome wasn’t built in a day; your education was built upon the sweat and tears of countless people who came before you. Be grateful that you don’t have to go through what they did to get in the same place that you are.
14. Don’t Take Shortcuts. The more shortcuts you take, the less you’ll learn. The less you learn, the less you’ll grow as a person. The less you learn and grow, the less value you will receive from the money invested in even being there. Don’t shortchange yourself or others.
15. Don’t Rely On Others. If it’s something you need to get done, then take care of it. If it’s a group project, take care of your part promptly and thoroughly. Don’t rely on other people for things that you should handle yourself. If it goes wrong, you will be the one held responsible.
16. Don’t Think You Have It All Figured Out. I’m still learning new things every day. If it’s not completely new, I’m probably learning nuances I had not before, or new applications of the knowledge. I do not know it all now, and I certainly didn’t when I was in college.
17. Spend Time With People With Similar Goals. All of us are influenced by the people around is. It’s not called a Sphere of Influence for nothing. Choose to surround yourself with people who will inspire you to become a better person and student.
18. Be Curious. There is required material for a course, yes, but there is so much more out there. Maybe the required material is not as interesting as a certain application of it. Get permission to pursue that application in your course work. It can help you survive classes that, otherwise, might have been enough to tranquilize a charging rhino.
19. Your Every Choice Shapes You. Make good choices and you will get good results and you will be that much closer to becoming the person you want to be.
20. The Grass Isn’t Greener, It’s Just Grass. If it looks better in their yard, then maybe they’re doing more to nurture and feed it. Choose to have a positive attitude and take action.

I do not regret my education. I did apply a lot of the things above but, had I implemented all of them consistently, I could have been so much better. I’m still working on many of these things today, as a student of life. You will never stop learning. It’s just a question of quality. Will your education be plush and green, or yellowed in the spots where you didn’t nurture it because it was too hard to reach, too long a journey, or just plain too hard?

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