It doesn’t matter if you plan to eventually earn NEC’s master in accounting or if you want to earn your BFA in music. If you are getting ready for your first year of college, you are going to have to prepare in the same way. You want to hit the ground running during your first semester of college and that means finding your way through a lot of major transitions. Here are 5 college prep tips for high school seniors.
- Get rid of all your junk
Before you move away for college, you want to be sure that you can get rid of as much of your stuff as possible. Your parents are going to want that room to be clean while you’re gone, and you’re going to accumulate a lot more stuff in college.
So donate all the clothes you don’t wear anymore, toss all your old homework assignments and get rid of any toys or trinkets that you don’t really need.
- Pack Early
It can be hard to know exactly what you will and won’t need during your first semester of school, but you want to err on the side of less rather than more. If there’s anything super important that you forgot, you could either have your parents mail it or you can try to buy another one.
You want to be sure that there will be enough space in your car or the plane for all of your belongings, so you want to really pare things down to the bare essentials. You may have to go through your things multiple times before you cut it down enough and really know what stays and what goes.
- Buy Your Books Early
Once you get to school, you want to buy your books as soon as they’re posted. This way you can be sure to beat the crowd and save money on all used copies. They hold all of the same information but at a fraction of the price.
You can even find a lot of your books used online at ridiculously cheap prices. A lot of people don’t realize that your books are probably the most expensive purchases that you will make while in college.
- Skim Through Your Books
Once you’ve bought all of your books and are settled into your dorm or your apartment, you want to start skimming through all of them. This will give you a strong sense of what you will be studying during your first semester and the overall approach of each course.
Just by reading the introduction and scanning through the table of contents you can get a very good idea of the overall angle of each one of your books. This will really prepare your for the curriculum.
- Meet Your Roommate Online
Once you know who your roommate will be you want to start getting to know that person online via email or social media. Not only will you be able to get a better idea of what your roommate is like, but you can also start talking about how you want to live while you’re in college. Do you want to keep things super clean and tidy? Do you want to have guests over all the time? Do you want to share certain food items? These are all important questions to ask each other ahead of time.
