Here are 10 Tips for College Students Getting Ready for Fall from college professor John Mark Reynolds. These are great tips for both entering and returning students.

1. Ignore advice to “remake” yourself the first day you get to college … Your family history and heritage matter … be wary of making big changes quickly.
2. Do something each week that puts you in contact with people older and younger than your peer group.
3. If you have a decent relationship with your parents keep it up. Remember that they are going through a tough transition too.
4. If you are going to college, then go. You are in college to learn … School is your full time job, put fifty hours a week into it or go home.
5. Find a faculty mentor during your first year. If you cannot, then your college is charging you for an education it cannot deliver.
6. Take classes that are hard from full-time professors that love to teach.
7. Secretaries and support staff are overworked, underpaid, and very powerful. You should be good to them out of virtue, but you must do it to thrive.
8. Books are not yet antiques. Go to the library. Talk to librarians … Spend hours a day reading.
9. Don’t be too quick to pick a major, but try to do so by the end of the first year.
10. Live like an adult in college which includes moderating your passions.

Those are just the main points. Be sure to read the whole article for more of John’s thoughts relating to each of the points presented above.