How to college

Be interested in your courses
Take the courses that really interest you. Read the course catalog, talk to your friends and find out what courses they like, and why. You have the freedom to explore. Use it.
Talk to your professors
Go to office hours. Your professors are just sitting there, especially in the early part of the semester, waiting for students to show up. They want to know you, they want to know you are interested in the material in the course. You took the course because the material interests you. Go, talk with them. Talk to them about what you didn’t understand, or what piqued your interest, or the weather. Don’t go once. Go over and over again.
You will be asking professors for recommendations in a few years. You want them to remember you. Even if you got a good grade from them, they will not remember you well, unless you spent time in their office, talking with them. Or, they may hear of a good internship opportunity later this year, and they will think of you, if they know you. Not if you write good essays, or even if you just speak up a lot in class (which you should also do).
The professors will like you. They want to like you, they expect to like you. And they will especially like you when you come in to talk about things that interest you, not just because you need something from them (like an extension or a recommendation letter). They are looking for the next bright new student they haven’t met yet. That’s you.
This applies to all courses, not just to courses where there is a lot of talking in class. Good for math, dance, and everything in between.
You’re not in college to get good grades. (Get good grades anyway.)
I tell students (in grad school) that they didn’t come to graduate school to get graded, and I don’t teach so that I can grade them. They went there to learn, and I teach to help them. Of course, I am required to assign them grades.
The same thing is true for you as an undergraduate. What this means is: don’t focus on whatever the syllabus says will be the basis of your grade. Focus on what the syllabus says is the objective of the course. This is what the instructor hopes you will get out of it, and what they hope you want to get out of it. If you do want that, and they have constructed the class well (and also constructed the grading system appropriately) then good grades will be a natural byproduct of being interested in the course.
Read the syllabus
Read it on the first day of class. The professor probably put a fair amount of thought into it. It should explain not only the motivation for the course and what is in it, but also a pretty good description of how the course will work, and finally a week by week or even session by session description of the topics in the course. Reading that last part carefully will help you see what’s coming up in the semester, and get ready to be interested in it. Or, you might find you’re less interested in it that you thought from the course catalog. If you read it on the first day of class, and find it’s not interesting, it’ll be easier to switch out into another class.
