Advice to pnms beginning their College/University experience…

[agzg]

I'd say MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR ROOMMATE. Even if she's the weirdest person alive. Even if she smells. Even if she's annoying as all get-out. Make nice, talk to her, share a little bit about yourself, and hope that she shares as well.

My freshman year roommate and I should not have been friends. At all. But, we used to have pizza at least once a month, just the two of us. It worked out well for me, because I spent most of my Freshman year with some sickness or another. I caught the flu within my first two weeks, and it was my roommate who took care of me. She even walked to the health center to get me when I got there, saw the doctor, and didn't know if I could make it back on my own (it was that bad).

Wash your hands, often. Even if people think you're compulsive. Carry some sanitizing gel in your bookbag. You'll get sick, freshmen all tend to mix all their diseases together because they live so close together and you haven't had all of their diseases. Also, other people don't necessarily have the same hygeine as you. Not washing their hands after they use the potty? It'll happen. Coughing all over everything? Yup. Don't let someone else's bad habits become your illnesses, if you can help it.

DO NOT SHARE CUPS/SILVERWARE/DISHES WITH ANYONE. If it's a cup, you don't know what's in it. One of the fastest ways to get mono. Remember, too, that a lot of people can be carriers of mono without having symptoms. Don't go around kissing all the boys on campus. You get it from one of them, and before you get symptoms, you'll have passed it along to half of the Freshman class!

Also, make sure you check the reading list before going to class, regardless of whether or not you did the reading. A. You don't want to carry all your books for every class around with you. B. You'll look like you didn't do the reading if the professor refers to a certain book, everyone else pulls it out, and you don't have it. Make sure you have the right book for each class! It should be on your schedule that's part of your syllabus.

[Rollergirl2001]

-You can use ratemyprofessors.com for info about professors, but don't rely on it too much. Some students that put poor ratings are either:
1. not attending class
2. not studying
3. procrastinate
4. other things

I have a professor that have receive poor ratings, but I disagree with them because she is a good professor. Some of the things on ratemyprofessors.com are true and some are not.

-Also, DO NOT PROCRASTINATE!!! After a professor gives you guidelines for the paper, start on it NOW!!! Do not wait until 3 days until due date.

-DON'T even think about copying off work (i.e. internet). This rule have been stated before in high school, but when you're in college, and if you plagarize, you will be in serious hot water (i.e. fail the course, get on academic suspension, or worse, expelled). Some schools use a website called turnitin.com to catch plagarism. For the first rough draft, 18% of my work is considered plagarized. When I got to the final draft, only 4% of my work is considered plagarized (and that's from bibliogragpies only).

-Take your paper to a writing center (if there is one avalible) for proofreading. I don't care if you have grammar problems or not. This is helpful, because tiny mistakes can be the difference between an A and a B (or a B and a C, and so on).

-Another thing, if a professor ask you to write a 3 page paper, WRITE 3 pages. If you don't, you will get penalized. I've got penailized 10 points for not having 3 full pages in one of my classes, and my final grade was a B+, and I miss having an A- by 2 points. And those penalty points can hurt your final grade. On a side note, when I had to write a 20 page paper for my History of Psych, I nearly wanted to quit, but I was not doing well in the class and I had to write 20 pages so at least I will come out with a decent grade. And so I wrote 23 pages and ended up getting a B. The others that did not write a miminum of 20 pages got low grades.