Not so long ago, it was enough to get into a top university to ensure your future career for the rest of your life. Not anymore – today, the choices you make in college are just as important, if not more so, than the choice of college itself. Want to get the most out of your time in college? Take a look at these suggestions.
Get to Know Your Professors
If you have professors whose teaching style really clicks with you, try to become someone other than just another face in the crowd of students for them. They are not just suppliers of knowledge. They can help you in a variety of other ways: they can be mentors, recommend you to people in your industry after you choose a direction in life and so on. Try to do it as early as possible – later on, they will have to deal with grading the assignments and other work, and won’t be able to pay you nearly as much attention.
Don’t Limit Yourself to Your Major
Take at least one class in a topic that has little or nothing to do with your major. Think about something that interests you, and don’t care if it won’t seemingly help you in your future career. Branching out like this will force you to think out of the box, show you the world beyond your chosen field and is likely to bring about useful insights that will heavily influence your later life – like Steve Jobs, who took a calligraphy class that later influenced his approach to typography.
Make Use of Tutoring
Most likely, your college offers a variety of tutoring opportunities, and it is wise to make full use of them. From having your essay edited to getting other types of assignment help, it is an excellent way to improve your grades without spending all your waking hours over books. Alternatively, if you are particularly good at a certain subject, consider tutoring other students in it. Not only does it look great on your future resume, but it also helps you better understand the material you are teaching.
Learn Some Real World Skills
Take at least one or two classes that teach real-world skills – that is, skills that will prove useful no matter what major you take and what turn your future career will take. Things like psychology, leadership, critical thinking, principles of effective communication, foreign languages won’t lose their importance even if you choose not to pursue a career suggested by your major.
Attend Extracurricular Activities
All colleges offer seminars and other types of extracurricular activities, often inviting guest speakers you will be hard pressed to listen to anywhere else. Don’t lose these opportunities – never again in your life will you have so many possibilities to learn new things, meet fascinating people, and sometimes even address your questions to them.
Learn Time Management Skills
College is probably the first time in your life when you achieve this amount of freedom and have so many things to choose from – which makes it the best time to learn how to use your time to maximum efficiency. Learning how to maintain focus and set priorities when there are so many other things vying for your attention will certainly come in handy in later life.
Start Building Your Network
Friendships you establish while in college have all the chances of becoming the foundation of your future professional network. By becoming close friends with people now, you make them much more likely to help you in future – and the importance of a broad network can hardly be overestimated, no matter what your industry is.
Have we missed anything? What do you believe to be important about getting the most out of college?