Good Advice for College

As the positive compliment of Bad Advice for College, I'd like to offer some of the best advice I received as a graduating high school senior, as well as a few conclusions I've reached after years of being a college and graduate student.

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"If your eye causes you to sin..." 

When you find yourself getting distracted or procrastinating, identify your distraction and kill it. If you can't write a paper without checking Facebook every two minutes, delete your Facebook. It is better for you to graduate without Facebook than with your Facebook to be cast out of your scholarship. You won't lose your friends and you won't die. When I deleted my Facebook in college, I felt freer and discovered that I had more time. I have never regretted it.

Take professors, not classes. 

Find out who the really good professors are in your department and take as many of their classes as you can. Exciting course titles mean nothing without good professors.

Learn to love research papers. 

Although they're often stressful, research papers are one of the most effective ways to learn in college. Take advantage of them, especially if you're allowed to choose a topic which interests you. You learn much more (and quicker) by writing research papers than you do by sitting in class.

If you can, talk to your professors outside of class. 

Find something related to the class which interests you and ask questions. I did this all the time, and sometimes learned more sitting in a professor's office for half-an-hour than I did sitting in his class for an hour. For instance, in one Freshman English class, we read a lot of poetry, and I didn't like most of it. So one day I sat down in her office and asked her, What makes a poem? And if it is a poem, how do we know it's good? I learned much from those conversations.

Don't go to college anywhere you can't find a good church. 

College is difficult and draining in every way: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This leaves you extremely vulnerable to falsehood, distraction, and temptation. You can't afford not to nourish your soul.

Remember the Sabbath day. 

Although the 4th Commandment is almost universally ignored, do your best to keep it. Knowing that you can't do any work on the Lord's Day will encourage you to work harder during the week. Taking a day off from your studies will keep you sane, healthy, and happy. It will also give you time to think and reflect, which is a lost but necessary art.

Be charitable and humble, even when you know your professors are wrong. 

Challenge your professors by asking questions. If you ask good questions, you might reveal an error in their logic and understanding or an error in your own. When you ask questions, they ought to be sincere. (That doesn't mean you can't ask someone question you know the answer to. It means that when you do, you should ask because you genuinely want to hear his answer, and not because you want him to look foolish. There is a difference between asking a question to expose an error and asking a question to embarrass a person. Make sure you ask for the first reason and not the second. Be sensitive.) Never forget that although your professor may indeed be wrong about something, you are more naive than you realize and have no reason to be smug. If you ask in humility, you will learn. If you ask in arrogance, you will only make a fool of yourself. But, with this in mind, never be afraid to ask questions.

Sleep. 

I hardly slept in college because I was so busy. I've learned a lot about sleep by not doing it. Fact: your body needs to sleep to process information and store your memories. This means that it's harder to memorize and remember things if you aren't sleeping. Also, you think more clearly when you're awake. Therefore, sleep is as important as studying when you're preparing for an exam.

Do you have good advice for students headed to college? Comment and share!