College life is a very special for all of us. College will open up a whole new world that we never imaged.  We will experience a unique kind of intellectual excitement that we never had before and will never have again as we enter the “real world”.  We should take time to fully enjoy our college life as it only lasts a few short years.  The rest of our life is left for us to work.

Hence, do not let outside work or a complicated life interfere with thrill of the college experience.

There are no hard and fast rules to settling in to college life but we do need to give it a chance. If we enter the college with a negative outlook we will find it harder adjusting to college life. College life can be so exciting that we may forget the important things sometimes, even essential things like getting enough sleep.

Important aspects of college life are maintaining good relations with others and developing good
learning concepts. Because, as the education level increases it is important to widen our conceptual abilities. Apart from all these, adjusting to the environment it is very important.

Interpersonal relationships

An interpersonal relationship is a relatively long-term association between two or more people. This association may be based on emotions, regular interactions, or some other type of social commitment.

All relationships involve some level of interdependence. People in a relationship tend to influence each other, share their thoughts and feelings, and engage in activities together. Because of this interdependence, anything that changes or effects one member of the relationship will results in some level of impact on the other member. Therefore, maintaining good interpersonal relations is very important in life especially, at college. Following are some of the tips to help us have good interpersonal relationships with others at college.

1. Speak to People

Make a habit to wish people when you see them for the first time in the day. There is nothing like a cheerful word of greeting. To really connect with people maintain eye contact when you speak.

2. Smile at People

All ways have a smile on your face, even when you are talking to strangers.  It takes 72 muscles to frown, only 14 to smile. They can hear the difference in your voice - even over the phone. In fact, smile sends positive waves to others.

3.  Name is identity

The music to anyone’s ear is the sound of their own name. . Address people with their names. It make them happy for identifying them.

4.  Friendly and Helpful

To have friends and build relationships, be a friend first. Always have a pleasant appearance to people.  It is always best to be assertive. Be cordial in your relationship with others.

5.  Have true Interest in others

You can like almost everybody if you try. People don’t care how much you know about them until they know how much you care. Do not try to put up artificial smiles.

6. Rightful Praise

Praise publicly, correct privately. Everyone wins this way. Always tell the reasons for your praises and criticism.

7. Be Considerate

Be considerate to feelings of others. Keep ego and emotions in check. Always try to have empathy with others. Give importance to others’ emotions. Always acknowledge others. What counts most is what we do for others not what we do for ourselves.

10. Have a Good Sense of Humor

Don’t take yourself too seriously. When you have lots of patience, and humility, you will have a recipe for enduring success. Try to be cheerful and allow some fun in your relationships. Good humor helps in strong bounding of relationship.

 In this Conceptual Age, a deeper understanding of the subtleties of human interactions become not only important but also imperative. Developing tolerance for a wide range of persons is a significant aspect which involves respect and acceptance of the persons of different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, races, lifestyles, and appearances, is very essential. In fact, all the concepts described above at the college are more important for better relationships.

Improving learning habits:

We are constantly learning everyday and in every aspect of our life. Some times we learn faster and easier than other times. Sometimes it takes us more time to catch on but we should experience the thrill of learning. At other times we may find the subject matter boring and unpleasant. When we learn to cultivate effective learning habits than we become successful learners. Consequently The learning becomes easier, faster and more enjoyable.

We may have a natural talent in some area but without practicing the skills involved we may not improve. For example you may be a talented basketball player but over time without practice you may lose your edge. A person with no skills in basketball may quickly become better than you just by putting in extra effort with determination. These skills form habits which make people successful no matter where they are in their lives. There are four important aspects of learning which we should give a thought about.

1. Thinking habits:

Get into the habit of thinking about “your thinking.” Learning successful ways to think about the reasons behind the decisions, questions, opinions, ideas and values that you raise or you arrive at. Understand how these learning fits into your life. You should recognize that learning habits differ from person to person. Therefore, you should practice the habit of looking within yourself to build your own strengths over weaknesses. First, you prepare a planning for learning. Next have check-ups during learning. Finally at the end review your learning.

2. Think positive thoughts about yourself:

Get into the habit of having a positive attitude. Focus on the positive aspects of your life. When things get tough, support and encourage yourself with positive messages. By frequently saying good things to yourself your confidence and self-esteem will grow will increase. This is one of the most important habits that successful people cultivate. Practicing it everyday will remove the negative messages that really do prevent you from reaching your goals. You also need to take the time and energy to replace the old habit with the new habit.

Whenever you have negative thoughts or begin to criticize yourself look over these positive messages. Rephrase negative messages into positive ones. For example instead of saying, “I can never be responsible,” tell yourself, “I can try to be responsible”.

3. Ask questions and take help:

People have unique experiences. They all have something to share or give. By asking questions you are taking a shortcut to solve your problem. Every time you don’t ask for help you set yourself back and get frustrated. Do not try and do everything by yourself. People enjoy helping and receiving assistance. Just remember people can’t read your mind. You will never know unless you ask. Teachers, tutors, coaches, friends, parents, siblings, etc. are there to help and assist.

When you have questions it is always a good habit to ask information from a variety of people. Do not just ask the same group of people over and over. You will be pleasantly surprised to learn from different perspectives and life experiences. Their mixture of knowledge will help you make informed decisions.

4. Build new habits to replace old ones:

People know what they want and are enthusiastic to get it. This motivation is the energy or fuel needed to drive them to their goals. Therefore it is always important to understand the new requirements and replace them for the old ones. By having effective habits you can properly store and channel energy to experience progress. Once you can see that the habit is working, it will be a lot easier to continue the habit. Hence, always be ready to replace your habits and be fresh always.
 
If you want to create new habits

Adjusting to college environment:
It can be a difficult time. Suddenly, perhaps for the first time in our life, we are moving away from everything familiar to us like family, friends, home, and school to make our way as a young adult entirely surrounded by strangers, in a new setting. We may feel that everything is been tested and challenged like our ability to succeed at college, skills at work, to build adult relationships, and to adapt to a lot of change all at once. To make ourselves more comfortable at college the following tips can be of use.

1. Keep an Open Mind

When you first move to college, you’re going to be in a new place, handling new situations. You will interact with strangers and you will be introduced to different types of people. When dealing with these situations, you need to keep an open mind. Being open-minded may help you connect with different people and help you deal with situations better. College isn’t just about learning facts and theories from textbooks but also involves learning how to be an adult. By being open minded, you may learn different things about other people or even about yourself, remember being open minded doesn’t mean you have to compromise with your beliefs or feelings. It involves being respectful and understanding of others.

2. Achieving competence.

This involves the development of intellectual, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social abilities as well as physical and manual skills. The sense of competence is defined as the confidence individuals have in their ability to cope with what comes and to achieve goals. Therefore we should frequently analyze ourselves and also take feedback from others to improve on skills which in turn help us to develop our abilities.

3. Managing emotions.

The young adult’s initial task is to become aware of personal feelings and to recognize that they provide information relevant to contemplated behavior or to decisions about future plans. As a larger range of feelings are acknowledged and expressed in appropriate ways, new and more useful patterns of expression and control can be achieved. To manage your emotion you should reduce your expectancies from others and also avoid trusting others blindly. It is very important not to let your emotions ride you.

 4. Autonomous.

Mature autonomy requires both emotional independence (freedom from continual and pressing needs for reassurance and approval of others) and instrumental independence (the ability to structure one’s life and master the environment in ways that allow for mobilization to satisfy one’s daily needs, carry on activities, and cope with problems without extensive direction or support from others). Simultaneously, the individual must accept interdependence, recognizing the reciprocal nature of the relationship that exists between the individual and the community, that one cannot receive benefits from a social structure. Therefore, everyone should learn to be resourceful.

5. Establishing identity.

Identity is confidence in one’s ability to maintain inner sameness and continuity; to reach a stage, one must understand one’s physical needs, characteristics, and personal appearance and be sure of sexual identification and appropriate roles and behavior. Because, external behavior is actually an evaluation for others about your thoughts and process by which they tend to identify you.

6. Clarifying purposes.

To develop purpose, an individual must formulate plans and priorities for a healthy lifestyle conducive to well being that integrate establishing a personal direction and orientation in one’s life that takes into account personal and ethical values, relationship/family plans, cultural participation, career objectives and educational involvement, as well as leisure time interests. Having a goal but not working towards it is foolish. Therefore, you must achieve goals and the motivation to reach the goal is created when we known why we want to achieve it.

Apart from the above mentioned they are many more challenges that students have to face at college but keeping in mind important aspects like why you are at college, and having good interpersonal relationships with others, have /develop learning habits and constantly be ready for changing environment can always make life happier at college.