You just keep your head down. Keep your books open. Do the work. Read the chapters. Show up for class.

Any thing that might distract you from studying is a bad thing.

Dating. Bar-hopping. Greek life. A part time job.

Live your life. But you don’t forget that you are paying good money to be there. Don’t waste it.

1) Work with your counselor or advisor, to create a schedule that allows you time for lecture hours (classes), lab hours (some courses may have a supervised out-of-class component), homework, and free time. Anything outside of school – such as a job, if you have one – should be scheduled in the ‘free time’ part of your day. You should also schedule some time to relax in there.

2) Make sure to stay in touch with your counselor, to keep them informed as to how things are going. If something isn’t working between you and one of your teachers, let the counselor know, and they may be able to help you work something out.

There are no ‘graduate students’ on the campus if you are taking classes at a community college. They don’t have ‘honors classes’ as many high schools do, but they often have different levels of classes in any given department.

There is no ‘bottom of the totem pole’ at the community college level – there are freshmen who take sophomore classes and vice versa. You should take the English and math placement tests to see what levels of those classes you should start with.

Of course, you should do your homework when assigned and study well for tests. This, however, does not mean that you have to spend all of your free time studying. No social life in college makes for a miserable experience, even with great grades.

One of the best ways to be more successful is to ask for or seek help when you need it. Your professors and instructors will be more than willing to help when you don’t understand a concept or assignment. All you have to do is shoot them an e-mail or visit their office hours. Also, most college provide many other resources for help, such as study tables, tutors and writing tutorial services.

Having a graduate instructor typically isn’t too bad. Keep in mind, they’re usually about the same age as the youngest teachers at the elementary/middle/high school level. The biggest issue is that some of them don’t care all that much about the students and teaching is just to help pay for school. However, if you do have instructors like that, there are many other resources for help. I actually had one graduate student instructor who, when I was falling behind in the class, was more than willing to meet with me as much as I needed to succeed.

Though it probably depends on the school, I don’t believe graduate students typically teach honors courses, none of mine have been.

You have to ask your professors or instructors when you’re confused or falling behind. In college, there are typically too many students for a professor to approach one that’s not doing well and offer help, they wait for the student to ask.

To address the first respondent’s answer:

Living in a dorm or joining a sorority does not mean you’ll do badly. Consider that, at most large state universities and many private institutions, nearly 100% of the students live in dorms at least their freshman year, nearly 100% of students don’t fail.

If sororities interest you, you can always find one that honors and respects the academic aspect of college. For example, Phi Mu places a great deal of importance on academics and has been honored at many universities for having the highest GPAs in the Greek system. Many of the smartest people I know in college are members of fraternities or sororities. Joining does not spell failure.

Give yourself a break, we all start somewhere (and its usually at the way bottom of the totem). I’m returning to college in January and couldn’t be happier. I love school too. My plan after this 2yr college is a 4yr college and I already have my heart set on one. You should not feel outranked at all, trust me once you get there it’s not about that at all, you’ll see that college life and college people do NOT look down on one another in any way, they build one another up and help them feel better about getting ahead and to the top of their own ladders. College is much different than high school in that Everyone there Wants to be there. Some or even most kids in high school are only there because legally the have no choice. So college people are there because they DO want to be and they only want to see themselves and like-minded people (other college kids) succeed. Everyone, whether they are above or below you, will help you in college. There’s no experience like it. You’ll see. Just stop fretting, you only have to look forward to it.

Notes. Notes. Notes.

Taking notes in class, even just writing an outline of the concepts, can help immensely in fitting what your are learning together in your head in easier to remember and more useful ways.

The more peace and quiet the better so don’t live in the dorms or join a Sorority.