Checklist for Your New College Freshman

Three Tips for Freshman Year

Summer is here and you have just graduated. Soon enough, your mother will be crying and your father will be proud as you make your way to college. For most of us, our college freshman experience is the same. We party too much, study too little, and hate living in the dorms. But by following this checklist, you can cut the negatives out of your first year at college!

A Better Dorm Room

I have been in a number of college dorms, and every one of them had something in common. It is not the awful tapestries and posters hanging about the walls; it is the clutter. Dorms are small, and inexperienced college students will seemingly bring their entire home with them on moving day. To have a better dorm room, I would suggest tackling this clutter!

A great way to combat clutter is to bring along some storage containers that will easily fit under your bed. That way they will reduce the clutter in your room while minimizing their own presence in your already small room. If you do not have any storage containers or do not wish to bring any from home, there are products for you.

In my first year of college, I stopped by my local Walmart and picked up a set of drawers for about $20. The white color helped to brighten the room, their small size helped to maximize area, and their decorative front kept them from being too drab or boring.

A Better Study Session

Freshman year is arguably the worst academic year. You have heavy workloads, an awful schedule, and classes that do not relate to each other whatsoever. Pair this with a difficult transition from high school expectations to college expectations and you are going to get some bad grades. Luckily, these bad grades can be combatted through efficient studying.

There are numerous studies detailing the main ways to improve your studying experience. People will tell you to study for certain periods of time. Or, they will tell you to write everything by hand rather than use a computer. For me, I found all this to help only to a small degree. The biggest improvement I found was in minimizing distractions.

Studying is not fun, so I would get easily distracted. To remedy this, I purchased a pair of noise-cancelling headphones for something like $50. When I needed to study, I would throw on a jazz or study playlist on Spotify, enable the sound-cancelling ability of the headphones, and be transported to a world without distraction. Using this technique, I was able to go from getting C's on my weekly assignments to acing everything.

A Better Party Experience

You deserve a break every once and awhile. Unfortunately, that break can be incredibly expensive. I remember going out to the local college bars and easily spending $100 a weekend. These spending habits really put a drain on my wallet, prompting me to question the situation. Is there a better way to party? Should I limit myself to a few dollars in cash? What are the best credit cards for students? Then I found it.

The best credit card for students is one that your parents pay for. That way you are not spending your own money and are still having a wonderful time! If your parents are not interested in this option, there are other routes that can be taken.

A credit card that offers cash back can greatly decrease your yearly costs. Think about it. If your card offers 5% cash back on all transactions and you spend $100, then you will get reimbursed for $5 of that. While that may seem small on one transaction, do that for an entire year and you will find yourself having a couple drinks for free. Now that is a college fund I can enjoy.