College is about thinking, and it will help you understand how to become a careful and critical thinker, someone who doesn’t believe everything that he or she hears or reads but instead looks for evidence before forming an opinion. Developing solid thinking skills will empower you to make sound decisions throughout your life.

Although college is often thought of as a time when traditional-age students become young adults, we realize that on today’s college campuses, many students are already adults. Whatever your age, college can be a time when you take risks, learn new things, and meet new and different people, all in a relatively safe environment. It’s OK to experiment in college, within limits, because that’s what college is designed for.

College will provide you with numerous opportunities to develop a variety of formal and informal social networks. These networks will help you make friends and develop alliances with faculty members and fellow students who share your interests and goals. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide a way to enrich your real-life social networks in college.

College definitely can and should be fun, and we hope it will be for you. You will meet new people, go to athletic events and parties, build camaraderie with new friends, and feel a sense of school spirit. Many college graduates relive memories of college days throughout their lives, fanatically root for their institution’s athletic teams, return for homecoming and class reunions, and encourage their own children to attend their alma mater. In fact, you might be a legacy student, someone whose parents or grandparents attended the same institution that you do.

In addition to being fun, college is a lot of work. Being a college student means spending many hours studying each week, staying up late at night, taking high-stakes exams, and possibly working harder than you ever have before. For many students, college becomes much like a job, with defined duties, expectations, and obligations. Most important is that college will be a set of experiences that will help you to further define your goals and achieve your own purpose.