First year of university tips I wish someone had given me

Your first year of university isn't like high school, and it's not because the courses are harder. What changes is that nobody tells you when to study. There's no daily homework, no one checks in, and your professor doesn't know your name. Everything feels calm until the first midterm, and that's exactly where most people fall behind.

The first year of university tips that actually help aren't about motivation. They're about habits: show up, know your dates, study a little every week. Get those right and the rest tends to sort itself out. Get them wrong and your first semester turns into a race to catch up on everything you let slide.

I'm in my final year of computer engineering, so first year is a while back but not forgotten. This is what I'd tell someone starting out, with examples from intro courses that show up in the first year of a lot of business and social science degrees: Intro to Economics, Financial Accounting, Intro to Sociology.

Go to lectures, even when nobody takes attendance

In a lot of courses, nobody checks whether you're there. That doesn't mean it doesn't matter. A large review of the research found that class attendance is one of the strongest predictors of college grades, ahead of plenty of things students worry about more.

The reason is simple. In the lecture you hear what the professor thinks is important, the examples that aren't on the slides, the date changes and what the exam will look like. The slides on their own are a skeleton. In Intro to Economics, a supply curve on a slide doesn't say much. The professor shifting it while walking through what happened to the price of something you actually buy does.

If you can't make it one day, don't let it slide: get someone's notes that same week. How to do that without falling behind is in missed a lecture? how to catch up.

Map every date in week one

Week one feels like orientation, but it's the most useful week of the term for getting organized. Open the syllabus for every course and the course site, and put all of this in one place (a calendar, a spreadsheet, whatever you'll actually open):

• Every exam date, for every course.
• Every assignment and problem set deadline.
• Office hours and review sessions.
• Registration and add/drop deadlines, which are very easy to miss in first year.

Once it's all together, you'll notice something nobody warns you about: midterms for different courses land in the same weeks. The midterm pile-up gets solved in week one, by starting early on the courses that collide. How to plan the whole semester around those dates is in how to plan your semester.

Study from week one, a little at a time

In high school you could study the night before and get away with it. At university the volume won't let you. One course can have twelve lectures' worth of slides before the first midterm, and reading them all in two days doesn't work.

What works is a short session after each lecture. It doesn't need to be long:

1. The same day or the next, go over the lecture slides and fill in your notes.
2. Close everything and try to explain the two or three main ideas without looking.
3. Write down what you couldn't explain, and ask about it in the next lecture or in office hours.

Step two is the one that matters. Pulling something out of memory without looking locks it in far better than reading it again, which is why rereading your notes the night before feels like knowing it without you actually knowing it. In Financial Accounting, a journal entry makes total sense when you see it worked out. Doing one on a blank page is a different story, and that's what the exam asks for.

Use your first exam to learn how university grades you

Your first exam in each course is also a test of how you prepared. It might go well or badly, but either way it tells you something you didn't know before: how that professor asks questions, how much detail they want and whether your way of studying was enough.

When you get it back, go through it calmly:

• What they asked, and whether it was definitions, problems or applying theory to a case.
• Where you lost marks and why: you didn't know it, you knew it but applied it wrong, or you ran out of time.
• What you'll change for the next one: start earlier, do more practice problems, study by writing answers out.

If it went badly, it's not a verdict on whether you belong in your program. It's information. What to do next is in failed an exam? what now.

Learn to study from your professor's material

At university there's rarely a textbook that follows the lectures line by line. Your material is whatever the professor posts: slide decks, PDF readings, problem sets. And lecture slides aren't notes. They're usually headings and a few words that only make sense with the lecture around them.

To make them useful, fill them in: next to each slide, write what it means in your own words and add an example. If you don't get one, flag it and ask. There are tools that help with this. Filmina, a web app that explains your lecture slides out loud, takes the deck from class and walks through it slide by slide, pointing at the part it's talking about, and you can ask it about whatever didn't click. It runs in the browser and has a free plan with a monthly minute limit. With or without tools, the point is the same: don't study from slides you don't understand.

Find your people and ask for help early

What separates people who finish first year well from people who don't often isn't how smart they are. It's having someone to ask. A couple of classmates you swap notes with, remind each other about deadlines and explain things to before an exam make a huge difference.

A few ideas:

• Talk to the person next to you in week one. It's much easier than in week ten, when the groups have already formed.
• Start a small study group, as long as everyone shows up having done the reading. What a group is good for and what it isn't is in study group vs studying alone.
• Go to office hours even if it feels awkward. Professors and TAs are there for exactly that, and almost nobody uses them until exam week.
• Use what your university offers: tutoring, academic advising, support for students who work. It's all on the university website, and almost no one finds it in first year.

And take care of the basics: sleep, eat and don't study with your phone next to you. It sounds obvious, and it's the first thing to go during exam season. For the phone part, how to study without your phone has what worked for me.

Frequently asked questions

How do I survive my first year of university?

Three habits: go to lectures even when attendance isn't taken, get every date for the semester into one place in week one, and study a little after each lecture instead of everything right before the exam.

Is it normal to do badly on your first university exam?

Yes, it's very common. Your first exam is also the first time you see how that professor grades, so use it to adjust how you study, not as proof of whether you belong in your program.

How much should I study in my first year of university?

There's no fixed number, but there is a rule: a little every week beats long hours right before the exam. A short session after each lecture, recalling without looking, already changes the result.

What is the hardest part of first year university?

For most people, managing yourself. Nobody tells you when to study or checks on you, so falling behind builds up quietly until the first midterm.