How to Avoid the Biggest Mistakes College Students Make

To have a smooth college experience, here’s how to avoid the biggest mistakes college students make to save yourself the grief.

1. Classes before 9am. Unless you are a morning person, opt for the later class time.
2. Taking too many classes. While it may be impressive that you’re taking more than the maximum suggested college credits, this will likely lead to overwhelm and burnt out. Even taking two hard-core classes in the same semester (like Accounting 200 and Russian) can be enough to drive you over the edge. Know your limits, or it will hurt your GPA.
3. Not asking for help. If something in one of your classes is keeping you up at night, ask for help. College professors are paid to make themselves available and help you work through the problem. Plus, they’re passionate about teaching and helping you succeed — it’s why they became educators in the first place.
4. Losing your scholarship. If you expect to coast through college the way you did through high school, prepare to be mistaken. While an occasional bad grade isn’t the end of the world, if you’ve got a scholarship that is conditional on maintaining a high GPA, you could lose your scholarship. And it’ll hurt. Take school seriously.
5. Counting on a shared printer working. When it comes to crunch time and the friggin’ printer isn’t working, some professors won’t give you extra leeway in submitting your paper late. You may be able to workaround the printer problem since many colleges, especially online colleges, give you the option to email assignments to your prof.
6. Mismanaging your time. If you only have 12 hours of class in a week, it can be easy to slack off, party, waste time, and procrastinate the work until it’s too late to get your assignment in on time without an all-nighter and some serious college stress. Pencil your classes into your calendar (the one on your phone counts) and don’t forget to schedule study and play time.
7. Dating a member of your study group. Let’s be honest. Study groups can be awkward as it is, without adding the extra drama if things don’t work out. For best results, date outside your study group.
8. Working full time while you’re a full time student. While some colleges do have lighter course loads than others, this will lead to the overwhelm we talked about in #2. It’s possible to hold down a part time job while you’re a student, just don’t sign up for full-time employment unless it’s spring/summer semester.
9. Dating your professor. As hella hot as your college professor may be, it’s not a good idea. Chances are it’s against some school policy that could put your object of desire in hot water. If you need help weaning yourself off your college professor crush, read our blog on What Your College Professor Thinks About Your Crush.
10. Getting a girl pregnant. ‘Nuff said.
11. Getting pregnant. Clarification: unless you want to be! Just remember, bringing a baby to a 300 level class can be, shall we say, challenging. Unless graduation is around the corner, you may need to put school on hold for a while until you get the swing of things as a mom.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in college so far?