Keep your load light and be diligent about studying, and if you did well in high school, you’ll be fine in college. Good luck!

Most important is your own personal motivation—keep an open mind about yourself. You might discover something totally new that you’re interested in, and you have to judge how to plan your life. The whole point of a University education is to enrich your whole life—to change your outlook and how you think. Each day, you will be doing fun, but also tough, mental work—some of it will demand free-ranging imagination, some self-analysis and opinions, some just hard memorization and calculation.

There is THAT side of the work, which builds your mind and self-awareness. But there is also the “housekeeping” side of your work, which involves getting textbooks, noting assignments and deadlines, preparing essays and projects, and psyching up for tests.

But the first (most exciting) year it’s very important to over-prepare. You literally have no idea what grade you will get in classes until you’ve gone through a few semesters. It’s very frustrating. For that first semester, take it slow, and over-prepare each class to the “nth” degree, even if it looks easy.

It’s best to take no chances with your Freshman classes—after that, you will be ready to predict how to get a certain grade—but at first, you really don’t know.

One tip is to register for the least amount of semester-hours possible those first semesters (usually 12 hours, or 4 classes, depending on your school). It’s better to over-do on those first classes than to take on too much of a load at first, because you can never go back and correct those bad grades.

Also, if possible, don’t take large lecture classes in any science subject the first semester (Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy). These are often “flunk-out” courses, and used by the college to thin out the Freshman class.

With all courses, and with all professors, be wary—there may be brilliant students in your class that you will be competing with. Take every class seriously, and methodically.

You were talking about NYU, that’s a HUGE CAMPUS it can take a half an hour or more to walk across it.

There is generally 3 hours of studies for each hour of class.

Libraries stay open late as a general rule. Typically for 7-11 M-Sat and 8-10 Sunday

Some classes may be auditorium style with 200+ students.

Most classes are 1 to 1 1/2 hours per day, two or three days a week.

Did you have a hard time with Trig or Pre Calc or Cal or Math Chemistry.

If not then most won’t be that hard.

Very hard courses including Organic Chemistry (only required for Chem, Biology and Medical Majors) and Astro Physics (only required for physicists and astronomers).

Most of it is just memorization.

You may actually find some of the classes fun as they are taught by different kinds of teacher.

Either Graduates helping a professor out, real world people (one of my Poly Sci teachers was a Nixon Elector who was going to Washington cast his vote for Nixon) or reserach professors actually doing real work.

Some of your lower division courses may be taught by common teachers, like you find in highschool only with more education. But by upper division you are working with some trend setters.

At any rate, college/university is much more challenging than high school. You have more responsibilities, longer assignments, and are expected to think more for yourself. However, it should not be too much for you to handle. Tens of thousands of students make the transition successfully every year. Just don’t go crazy partying and study hard, and you’ll done fine!

Unfortunately you might find it to be a little bit of a rude awakening as high school doesn’t prepare you a whole lot. But in general if you’re not afraid of the hard work, you’ll do just fine.

You will no longer be spoon fed the answers. You will have to write longer essays with your own findings clearly explained. You will need to find books in the library and read them all by yourself.

And you will love the freedom and independance.

There are plenty of classes you can take on essay writing, and they are free at your place of study.

Most new people are just as nervous as you. And as I always say… NERVES ARE GOOD… IT PROVES YOU CARE!

Have a lovely time on your course.