Advice for New College Students?

If it’s mid-August, then it’s just about time for new students to start arriving at campuses around the country. While we’ve written to new *graduate* students before, new undergrads have largely escaped our attention. And yet, many of us teach first-year students, and some of us may even teach in first-year experience courses, designed in part to help students adjust to higher education.

In this week’s Open Thread, then, let’s hear about best advice / favorite resources that you pass along to new college students. To kick things off, here are three things I usually say at various points:

• Join something. Especially if you’re a commuting student, or if you have significant off-campus family or work responsibilities, a community of peers on campus can be incredibly helpful.
• Use Dropbox, or something like it. Try services such as Evernote, Zotero, Devonthink, Mendeley, and others.
• Don’t think of college as a degree, but as an opportunity to make yourself–and to make things–with interested and interesting people. Own your education.

But what about *you*? What do you think new students should know?

[Creative Commons-licensed flickr photo by Evan Bench]