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see that many people struggle with self-confidence when going into a new situation. My views? It’s a new opportunity to be yourself. You just have to get up and get out there. So lets get to the three tips for succeeding at college, besides doing well in classes:

You are not as awkward as you think.
When people enter college, they don’t enter with critical eyes. Those things that you think to yourself about yourself? Those words that you put in other people’s brains? Not true. When you are talking to someone for the first time, they aren’t thinking
“Oh man, that girl stuttured when she talked to me, what a weirdo!” or “Why did this girl talk to me, I just wanted to go through my first day of school alone!”
It’s your first day, it’s your first week, it’s your first class, or even- it’s your first time meeting someone new. Are you anxious to make friends and meet people? Well so is every other person there! That is something that I had to realize my first year, and is something that you have to realize as well. We can never know what another person is thinking. Most likely, they are concerned about themselves, what they’re doing, what they’re going to have for lunch, whether you notice the stain on their collar- their own lives. When you are around a bunch of freshman in college, no one is thinking
“Oh that girl is weird, she talks to people, I don’t want to talk to her”
What makes you not good enough? Nothing, except that you are telling yourself you are not. Find that inner self confidence you’ve been hiding and bring it out, even if you have to fake it.

If you imagine that things are going to suck…they probably will.
When you think about the future in negative terms, saying that you won’t be able to make any friends, or that college is going to be really awkward, you are giving yourself no encouragement. When you tell yourself you can’t do something, or something is going to be bad- chances are that you aren’t going to be able to do it. You do not know the future. You do not know what will happen. Go into school without expectations. When you have neutral expectations you are ready for anything. Make sure to go with the flow of things, things change all the time, activities pop up at random opportunities- grab them while you can!
The same thing if you expect people to not like you. These people do not know you. You get to show them who you are and what you bring to the table. While that might seem intimidating- it is SO freeing. When I worked at a camp last summer, I decided
“You know what, these people don’t know me, they don’t know my past, why should I act self concious and shy around them?”
So I did just that. I faked confidence. I talked to people, I made friends. That whole fake confidence creates real confidence? It works. If you pretend to be outgoing, if you feign that you can talk to people, guess what? You ARE then talking to people and being outgoing! And when you act like yourself, when you let your personality shine through, and talk about the things you like, people are going to like that about you. You could be the most society-says-I’m-not-pretty-girl in the world, but when you go out of your way, or respond back, or be yourself- people notice. People want to get to know you. It doesn’t have to be you being the life of the party, but simply sharing your opinions and responding to others and asking how someone’s weekend was. People out there are probably just as nervous as you are, especially those first few days of college! The number one thing is- go in without expectations. If you expect to meet your best friend the first few days and expect college to be amazingly awesome- you might be disappointing, and be let down. If you expect school to be terrible you’ll see all the bad spots, and all the people who were too busy or distracted with their own lives to get to know you. Keep going, don’t give up. College is what you make of it.

Nothing is going to happen if you do nothing.
My first semester of school I was upset because I wasn’t meeting people. I wasn’t taking opportunities because I had already ruled them out in my head. I was giving myself excuses to not take risks and to do what was safe. If you sit in your dorm room all day, ignore the campus social events, don’t talk to people in class- things aren’t going to happen. No one is going to come knocking on your door saying “Hello, we are so alike, lets be best friends and go to parties together”. But go through those awkward orientations, wade through the weirdos selling health insurance and take a chance. That’s the only way that you’ll really find that you are good enough. You are an individual, and others deserve to know you. Look at the campus bulletin board. Join a club. No one is going to think you’re a weirdo for going to their club, they love new members. They made that club so that they could meet people of common interests! Go watch the concerts and the plays and the movies that your school provides. Even if you don’t go or meet anyone, you now have something to talk about with someone else at your school! Don’t be afraid to invite people to do things. Go see a movie, play frisbee on the lawn, play world of warcraft in the basement if that’s your thing- take a chance on someone else, they’re doing the same for you.