3 Skills Rising First Year College Students Can Practice Over the Summer

Congratulations to all the seniors wrapping up their last year of high school! If you’re a parent or guardian reading this, kudos to you too! This is a huge milestone for everyone. I hope you all take time to let the momentousness of graduation sink in and give yourself the opportunity to reflect and rest a bit.

And, when you’re ready to use your brain again and think about the fall, I’m sharing below the first of several lists of suggestions that I think will help ease the transition from home to college campus living. This list is short and not exhaustive – and the items may not apply to you – but it’s a good start as you begin to focus on next year.

I start with these three skills because, from my experience with students over the years, these are particularly important for most first year college students, and they take time and practice to learn.

1.     Do Your Laundry: For many students, this means learning how to do it for the first time! And there are at least two parts to the laundry process. First, there’s learning how to divide up loads (did you know that not all materials are washed the same way and colors may run onto your whites leaving you with lots of dull grays and pinks?), what kind and how much soap to use (the variety of products is dizzying), how much time to reserve (the washing and drying often seems to take forever, and you may have to wait for machines because you’re sharing with others), how to fold clean clothes (unless the wrinkled look is preferred!), and when to start the process again because clothes get dirty and – assuming you want clean stuff – they’re not going to clean themselves! And, second, there’s how to pay for using the washers and dryers in your residence hall (or apartment). Yes, you’ll have to pay to use the machines, either with coins or credit cards or a campus money card of some kind (check online for this information).  

So, over the next many weeks, practice doing your own laundry – and perhaps helping your family with this task because it’s a nice thing to do -- and you’ll be a pro when you get to school.

 2.     Tidy Your Room: You may not have a roommate at home, but you’re more than likely to have one at school. And while you surely know that living with other people can be a challenge – it’s one reason lots of students look forward to moving away from home! -- it’s especially difficult to share small quarters with someone else. But learning how to work through the difficulties of sharing space is a critical life skill, as many married or other partners will tell you.

A primary cause of angst between roommates (of the married or college or other kind) is different levels of and tolerance for clutter and cleanliness. One of the questions you will get from college residence hall staff as they put together roommate assignments is about how you keep your space. The staff can’t guarantee that equally slovenly or neat students will be paired so one way for you to approach the uncertainty is to practice being moderately neat – or at least keeping your stuff contained. If you’re not used to making your bed or picking your clothes up off the floor of your room, you might consider getting into the habit of pulling your sheets up and putting your clothes on your bed (if not in drawers or the closet). Additionally, think about how you help maintain common rooms in your home so that you’re more aware of how you treat your stuff and others’ stuff in those spaces. This certainly can’t hurt and it's likely to help ease potential conflicts.

 3.     Record Your Schedule: Keeping track of your own time may be the single most difficult task for someone leaving home for the first time. In college, there is at once a lot of free time and so much to do. And there’s no parent or guardian or teacher or counsellor or school administrator or sports coach or anyone else to note your appointments, remind you of where you need and want to be, to balance work with everything else you want to do, or to hold you accountable for your commitments. It’s on you. And you’re likely to struggle with it because you have newly found freedom and flexibility (it’s so fabulous!) and no one looking over your shoulder (potentially problematic!).

So, practice relying on yourself over the summer to keep track of your schedule. However simple or complex your life is with work, family, and friends – and perhaps even cleaning your room and doing your laundry – use an electronic device or paper calendar to record what you’re doing. It will help you be responsible for your time and, importantly, it will increase your awareness of how you spend your time. When the fall comes and it's just you responsible for planning your days and weeks around classes, studying, partying with friends, going to concerts and movies, playing sports, working or volunteering, or anything else, you’re better (not perfectly, but better) prepared to know how to allocate and manage your time.

If you’re reading carefully, you may notice that each of these three items is not only useful in itself, but involves skill sets that will be more widely meaningful for your academic and social life – and mental health – too. The primary purpose of this list – and the others that I’ll share – is to get you thinking specifically and generally about college life in ways that help you adapt to new circumstances and manage the ups and downs that are inevitable on campus.