Need Advice for University? Real, Practical Tips For New College Students From A Parent
Last Monday, I was wiping down the kitchen counter after breakfast when my 19-year-old, Lila, dragged her laptop over to the table and slumped into the chair. Her hoodie was inside out, there was a coffee stain on the sleeve, a half-eaten bowl of Cheerios was sweating next to her elbow, and her fall break packing was still piled by the front door. “I need help,” she said, scrolling through the second-year course registration page like it was written in another language. “Everyone I know already has their whole four years planned. My roommate’s already got a summer internship lined up for next year. I don’t even know what elective to pick.”
Over the past year, I’ve gotten at least a dozen texts from friends with kids starting college, all asking the same thing. What advice do you actually give them? All the high school college counseling talks are about application essays and financial aid forms, all the orientation sessions are about emergency contacts and not getting locked out of the dorm after 10pm. No one tells you the stuff that actually matters once you’re there, navigating messy roommate agreements, figuring out what classes to take, and sorting through the noise of everyone else’s “perfect” plans.
I pulled out a chair across from Lila, poured her another cup of the mint tea she likes, and started with the first thing I tell every new college student: Cap your credit hours at 15 a semester, unless you have a hard deadline to graduate early for a scholarship or a specific program. When I was Lila’s age, I loaded up 18 credit hours my first semester because I thought graduating early would impress employers and save us money. I pulled all-nighters every week, skipped the campus poetry workshop I’d been excited to join because I didn’t have time, and ended up with a C in advanced French that dragged down my GPA for two years. Extra credits don’t impress grad schools or employers half as much as finishing strong, having time to build connections, and actually enjoying part of your college experience. 15 credits is enough to graduate on time for most four-year degrees, and it leaves space for the stuff that actually ends up mattering: club meetings, coffee with professors, even just a nap on a Saturday after a long week of classes.
Next, go to office hours at least once a semester for every class, even if you don’t need help with an assignment. I gave Lila the exact line she can use if she doesn’t know what to say: “I really enjoyed your lecture on [whatever topic stuck with you] this week. I was wondering if you have any extra reading recommendations if I want to learn more about it.” It’s low-stakes, it gets your face in front of the professor, and it’s way easier than showing up at the end of the semester begging for a letter of rec when they don’t even know your name. Lila did this last semester for her intro sociology class, and the professor ended up inviting her to help with a small research project he was doing on teen social media use. She got a great reference out of it, and discovered she actually really liked doing interview work, something she never would have found out if she’d just sat in the back of the lecture hall and never said a word.
I also told her: If your roommate or your living situation makes you miserable, you don’t have to stick it out to be nice. A friend of mine has a son who stayed in a bad dorm situation his whole first year, because he didn’t want to be “the difficult kid” who caused drama. His roommate partied until 3am every night, blared music while he was studying for midterms, and never paid his share of the dorm snack fund. My friend’s son ended up failing two classes because he couldn’t study in his room, and had to retake them over summer. 9 times out of 10, if you go to your RA or housing office in the first two weeks, there’s another student looking for a roommate swap, and no one will penalize you for asking. Your dorm is your home, you don’t owe anyone politeness at the cost of your grades or your mental health.
I also cleared up the big myth that changing your major means you wasted time or failed. Lila started as pre-med, because she liked biology in high school and we all just assumed that’s what she’d pursue. A month in, she realized she hated organic chemistry lab and didn’t actually want to go to med school anyway, she just didn’t know what else to pick. When we sat down to go through the degree guide, it turned out all but two of her pre-med classes counted toward the education major she’s now curious about. She’ll still graduate on time. Most general ed credits transfer between majors, and even if you have to stay an extra semester, that’s a tiny blip compared to 40 years of working in a field you didn’t even want in the first place.
The last thing I told Lila is that you don’t have to answer the “what do you want to do after graduation” question right now. Stop asking yourself that big, scary question that makes you want to throw your laptop across the room. Instead, every month, just ask yourself one small question: What’s one thing I did this month that I enjoyed more than anything else? Then try one small thing to do more of that. If you liked tutoring kids at the local elementary school, take that education elective. If you liked running the Instagram for the campus animal rescue, take that intro marketing class. You don’t have to commit to a whole career just from one good afternoon.
Lila ended up dropping the advanced chemistry class she only took because her advisor said it would look good for pre-med, which she never even wanted anyway. She registered for the education elective she was curious about, and signed up for more tutoring hours next semester. She still texts me panicking every week about something – last week it was a forgotten discussion post, the week before that it was the dorm laundry room eating her quarters. She still doesn’t know what she’s doing after graduation, and I don’t either. That’s okay. This advice isn’t going to guarantee a perfect career or a perfect life. It’s just the stuff that makes the four years a little less stressful, a little more yours.
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