A cautionary word to those 1st year students embarking upon higher education....

I disagree with your view of tertiary education, Mr EscalationOfEpiphanies

1. You only need an IQ of 105 to get into most universities (except the top echelon colleges which are far more competitive).

2. The first year is designed to eliminate the students who are not dedicated and willing to work. The entire undergraduate degree functions in the same way. A 50% dropout rate is not uncommon (usually the ones who are anti-academic and anti-intellectual in their general attitudes - tourists checking the system but not sincere about learning - or kids reluctantly doing what their parents expect.)

3. To do well at uni one must read all the set texts, do all the exercises, and read the optional reading and beyond. The exercises train the mind in modes of critical, analytical, comparative and synthesizing thinking. Unless one trains the mind at this level, the marks will only average between pass and credit. It is not enough to rely on memory and IQ alone.

3. It is difficult to do well if you don't look after yourself with adequate sleep, exercise and healthy diet. The mind cannot function at its best without them.
Emotional health is also important, which means allowing time to develop friendships.

4. The key to achieving this is getting well organised during orientations week: studying the course structure, examining the assignments, noting the due dates and timetables on your calendar, and being on top of all the introductory notes and exercises before the first tutorial. Especially, learn how the uni's internal computer system works; if it's an old one like the Blackboard it will be clumsy, fragmented, confusing and difficult - but once you get to know it by heart it becomes easy.

5. Learn exactly what plagiarism is and don't attempt it.
a) You don't learn anything if you cheat or rely on the work of others
b) Systems like Turn-It-In scan at lightning speed and can pick up any phrases of two words or more that match former students' essays or anything published.
No need to feel daunted; English vocabulary and syntax are big and variable enough to ensure that you can always find a different way of acknowledging and paraphrasing another thinker's ideas.

A cautionary word to those 1st year students embarking upon higher education....

Learn. Don’t waste your time. Have fun and say yes more. Make new friends and don’t be afraid of things that are different from you. You don’t have to learn everything. They shove your way, but make a mental note – you may want them later in life.

Be a good person, and be known as a good person. I assume everyone else has good intentions, but act as if they don’t. Safeguard yourself, be who you were meant to be, and make the most of your time. It’s such an amazing, wonderful, harrowing, transformative experience.

What a pointless post.

The real danger, as I understand it, is that in many public colleges the first year or so are a recap of highschool, then the actual courses you want to study are tossed in if you feel like it.