It’s that time of year when all the seniors have moved on. We’ve all mentally moved on from high school, and let’s be honest, many of us aren’t physically here either. However, if we aren’t putting mental energy into high school anymore, maybe we should start preparing for college life. Without further ado, here’s what the internet suggests: (I tried to leave out the most obvious ones such as go to class, reach out to your professors, etc.

Saving money:

• Know what you’re paying for and use those amenities
  • Don’t buy a gym membership in college, you’re probably already paying campus fees for one. 
• Student Discounts- USE THEM
• There’s almost always free food around campus-downgrade your meal plan and take advantage!
• Know the terms and conditions of your scholarships-if it’s merit, there’s a good chance you have a minimum GPA to maintain and that’s information that you don’t want to find out the hard way
• Wait to buy your textbooks-not all classes will use the ones listed on the syllabus and you might be able to download it off the internet for free
• Depending on your college’s policies, you might be able to test out of Gen-eds using CLEP exams 
• Continue to look for scholarships, many scholarships from outside sources are one-time awards, and you’ll probably want to replace them. The good news is that you might become eligible for departmental scholarships or new scholarships with time though

Signing up for classes:

• Use rate my professor- some schools have serious grade deflation and if you’re going on a scholarship, you want to avoid that 
• DO NOT SIGN UP FOR YOUR HARDEST CLASSES FIRST SEMESTER
  • It might seem like you want to “get them out of the way,” but a)you don’t need to make a hard adjustment harder and b) you need to pad your GPA as much you can before you take classes you might not do well in
• Depending on your college’s transfer credit policy, consider taking a class you need but know you’ll be bad at a community college and transferring it in 
• Consider scheduling the majority of your classes on one or two days to elongate your weekend
• If you already know your roommate, make sure your classes aren’t all at the same time, so you can both have alone time sometimes

Dorm room:

• Only buy things you would reuse later in life
  • While I’m sure your 9th-grade Pinterest board looks super cute, remember that most people only live in a dorm for 1-2 years and you don’t want to spend a lot of money and then have nothing to show for it
• You don’t need to be friends with your roommate, you only need to live with them
  • Sometimes you’ll be best friends with your roommate and sometimes you’ll just cohabitate and that’s ok
• You’ll need more storage space than you get 
  • Get bed lifters and use under your bed for storage space

Academics:

• Use your college writing center-it’s like a free (but better) version of Grammarly Premium 
• Use your college’s career center, they can help you get jobs and internships and it is one of the only times in your life when someone else will be so invested in you getting a job (connections make the world go round)
• Go to office hours-this investment in making your professor like you might come in handy when you have an 89 at the end of the semester…