The Ten Commandments For New College Students

By Prof. Charles D. Myers, Ph.D.

I have a great job. For almost three decades, I have had the pleasure of teaching, advising, and mentoring 18–22 years olds at a superb liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. As colleges and universities across the country prepare to welcome the newly arriving class, I know there are many students who are a bit nervous about whether they are up for the academic challenges that college presents.

Because of my extensive experience in higher education, I know exactly what fine high school graduates must do in order to succeed in college. As a trained biblical scholar, I know that the following “Ten Commandments” are not as well known as the ones given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

But trust me.

Following the Ten Commandments listed below will lead you to the Promised Land of a successful college career:

In high school students spend about 35 hours a week in school. College students spend 15–20 hours a week in class. But just because there is less “seat-time” in college, do not think that class is less important. In fact, class is more important in college, and students who cut class (and this is much easier in college than in high school) do so at their own academic peril.

Invest in a loud back-up alarm for those times when your cell phone alarm unexpectedly dies.

Never use the excuse that you are unprepared for class, so you should not attend. Going to class motivates you to prepare. It also shows you how you need to prepare for class. Besides, cutting class even one time makes it easier to miss a second and a third and a fourth class. For that reason the most successful students make it a hard-and-fast rule from Day One to get to each and every class.

College is a unique time in your life. For four years you will be required to do little more than read and write, think and discuss — and do your laundry! You will not have to mow the grass, pay the electric and water bills, or shovel the snow. Most of your meals will be prepared for you, much of your trash will be collected, and your bathrooms will be cleaned (although probably not often enough). This four-year experience is costly, to be sure, so take full advantage of it. And the best way to take advantage is to take the initiative.

College gives you the freedom to design your own experience. Therefore, you decide what courses you take, the major you want to study, the organizations that you join, and the level of participation you want.

Because this is your time, do not settle for second-best. Do not take classes that do not interest you just because they are offered at a convenient time. Take the best classes you can find, whenever they are offered. Do not fulfill college-wide requirements by taking courses that everyone else takes. Find less-popular ways of fulfilling requirements. This is your college experience, so do not take “no” for an answer. If a class you want to take is “closed,” attend the first class anyway. Then, after the class, speak to the professor and ask if you may enroll. Attending the class shows more interest than a simple email message, and professors are more willing to make extra room for a highly motivated student in a fully enrolled class. In short, successful students take the initiative and make their college experience their own.

A wise former president at my school used to say, “We can do anything we want. We just can’t do everything.” That adage applies to students in college. College is full of options for students. There are infinite possibilities and opportunities. But too many students think that saying “yes” to everything that comes along is the best way to experience all that college life has to offer.

Saying “yes” to everything actually limits what you can do, for you end up doing a little of everything and never invest yourself in any one thing.

Unlike high school, where you tried to do it all, college is a time of doing a few things well. And to do those things well, you will have to learn to say “no” to many of the worthwhile (and not so worthwhile) endeavors on campus that will compete for your time, energy, and attention. The most successful students have mastered the art of saying “no.”

Colleges and universities exert a lot of pressure on students to declare a major as early as possible. From the time you apply to the time of your on-campus interview to your initial time on campus, you will be asked repeatedly about your desired major. Selecting a major early in your college career is necessary in some fields and for some career paths, such as for pre-med and in the lab sciences, but not for all majors. So, if you are truly undecided about what major to choose (and, in my experience, the vast majority of students fall into this category), then use your early semesters to take courses in various departments.

Find subjects that interest you and professors with whom you want to study, for ultimately you will do better work in interesting courses that are taught by engaging professors.

Only then should you declare a major in that department. While selecting a major is critically important, if you hope to do graduate study in that field (so, for example, if you want to do graduate study in clinical psychology, then you need to major in psych), selecting a major for most students is not tantamount to choosing a career. Not all history majors, for example, become historians! Before declaring a major the very best students take a wide range of courses to determine what truly interests them.

This sounds like strange advice coming from a college professor. After all, you have been taught the importance of grades from an early stage in your education. But in college, grades have a different meaning. Ultimately, what is important is graduating from college. Your diploma, and not your transcript, will open doors for you upon graduation. Employers will never ask to see your transcript, which is not easily decipherable in the first place. And, even if they did, they would never stress about why you got a B+ instead of an A- in your First Year Seminar entitled, “Death and the Meaning of Life.” So why should you?

Grades are important only if you intend to do advanced study in a professional or academic graduate program.

But even in those cases, grades are only one of several factors that are considered in graduate school admissions. Besides, students who are only interested in achieving a high Grade Point Average may be tempted to take easier, less challenging classes in order to get better grades. Don’t be like an athletic team that schedules “cream-puff” opponents to increase its season’s wins. Challenge yourself by taking demanding courses in new areas of interest, and be proud of whatever hard-earned grade you receive.

That is not to say that grades are unimportant. But grades need to be seen for what they are: valuable feedback from an expert in the field about how you are faring in a course. That critical evaluation is essential for good learning, for grades can help you determine if you are studying the right material, if you are putting enough time into the course, and if you are grasping the basic concepts. Grades, when properly understood, can motivate you to work harder, dig deeper, and seek help, if needed. The most successful students avoid the common mistake of seeing high grades in college as necessarily synonymous with true learning.

Technology is a great thing, and colleges take full advantage of technological advances. But technology has also made it easier for students to cheat. Armed with electronic devices and aided by the Internet, students today can readily plagiarize the work of others, alter the results in a lab report, and obtain unauthorized aid on an in-class exam. There are a lot of good reasons not to cheat. Honesty and integrity are two of them. But a more practical reason is that cheating cheats the cheater out of an education. After all, the only thing that a cheater learns from cheating is how to cheat.

Like cutting class, cheating only one time makes it easier to cheat again and again and again until one’s entire college career is compromised.

But be forewarned: technology has also enabled faculty and administrators to discover cheating more readily. And, if students are caught cheating, then they have committed the “unforgiveable sin” in academia and will pay a severe penalty for their folly, which is failure in the course at the least and suspension or even permanent expulsion from the institution at the most. In short, cheating is not worth it.

Colleges work hard to recruit the very best students to attend their fine institutions. They tout their beautiful grounds, their excellent facilities, their outstanding faculty, and their sumptuous food. But no college or university has everything that students need to succeed in today’s world, so students need to spend at least one semester, if not an entire year, studying abroad.

Not only will study abroad experience give you the global perspective that is so desirable in today’s world, it will have a maturing influence on you, for you will learn to navigate a foreign culture on your own.

I continue to be impressed by how much more sophisticated, worldly, and self-assured students are when they return from studying abroad. And unlike studying in your home institution, study abroad is a full-time, total immersion learning experience! So, the question that successful students ask is not if they should study abroad. From the moment they arrive on campus, successful students begin to ask where and when they should study abroad, and then plan accordingly.

College is all about individual effort. But the best students know they perform best when they have a strong team to support them. While you were at home you had your family, friends, school, and community to offer support to you.

Now that you are in a new environment, you need to cultivate a new support system.

New students focus on making new friends when they arrive on campus, and they should. But some of those new friends need to be older, wiser, and more experienced than you are. You will have a Resident Advisor who will oversee life in the residence hall.

Get to know that person in case you have roommate issues or other concerns related to dorm life.

You will be assigned an academic advisor. Get to know your advisor who can help you with your course of study and can address your academic questions and concerns.

Get to know the professors who teach the courses that you are taking. Your professors can help you with the subject matter of the course, if you need help, and they can recommend you for awards, scholarships, employment, and graduate school.

Get to know successful upper-class students who have experience with the school, for they can help you navigate the ins and outs of the institution.

In short, great students cultivate relationships with others early in their college career, so they have people in the campus community to whom they can turn and with whom they can speak should a problem arise.

College is a time of intense self-centeredness. During college you are concerned with your interests, your studies, and your future career. At the same time, college is a tremendous privilege. You are attending college because you have the academic training, the intellectual ability, and the financial resources that are requisite for being admitted. Not everyone is so fortunate.

So, remember your good fortune and break out of your self-centeredness by becoming involved in service from an early time in your college career.

Spend some of your free time tutoring or mentoring a young person, building or repairing homes of the less fortunate, serving the hungry in a soup kitchen, or visiting the lonely. The best students recognize that service to others is an essential outgrowth of higher education, and they make a point of involving themselves in some form of service soon after they arrive on campus.

One of the most difficult and yet one of the most important rules to follow is to get some sleep. College places great demands on your time. You have heard of Gen X, those who were born between 1966 and 1980. Well, you are members of what I call “Gen-eXcess.” Unlike the ancient Greek precept, “Nothing in excess,” today’s college students live by the principle, “Everything in excess!”

That means that you like to study hard, but you also like to play hard. What gets sacrificed in this non-stop, 24/7 life style is sleep. Residence halls are notoriously noisy late into the evening, so it is not easy to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. But too often students are so involved with other social or athletic or organizational activities that they do not begin studying until midnight, which also makes getting a good night’s sleep nearly impossible.

A lack of sleep means that you either miss class because you oversleep, which is a violation of Commandment 1, or you are inattentive in class, which defeats the purpose of going in the first place.

A lack of sleep also makes you more vulnerable to the contagious illnesses that can run rampant through a residence hall and can lead to more missed classes and falling behind in your course work. The most successful students know the importance of rest and strive to get a sufficient amount of it each day.

To the incoming first-year students I say congratulations on your past academic success that has positioned you to begin a new chapter in your academic journey. You have a right to be proud of your achievements and a little nervous about this next phase of your life. But let me reassure you that by following the Ten Commandments listed above, you, like many students before you have demonstrated, will get the utmost out of your college experience. May the success of the next four years be the beginning of a truly successful and fulfilling adult life.

Buz Myers is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Gettysburg College.