"These are the greatest years you'll ever have!"
While you will have a great time, it will not be easy. There will be challenges. There will be nights when you don't get much sleep, when your classes are piling up, and when you don't have a social life. But the bad times don't last forever, and it makes you appreciate the days when you get the chance just to lay out in the sun on the quad all day on a Saturday.
Getting involved on campus is one of the best things you can do.
Even if you aren't 100 percent sure what you want to do with your life right now, test the waters. It's seriously the last time you can test-drive your various interests, and figure out the one you like best, before you have to worry about getting bills paid on time. It's overall, a great way to discover more about yourself and meet a lot of new people. If you know exactly what you want to do, awesome, get in there as soon as you can, to add a ton of more skills to your resume that may help you beat out your competition for a job come graduation.
It's literally only up to you whether you pass or succeed.
Mommy and Daddy aren't here to save you anymore. It's your responsibility to get to your classes and do well in them, to clean your room, and eat healthy/workout. If that scares you, you should probably get used to this fact ASAP, because that's what the rest of your adult life will be like from this point forward.
Getting along with your roommate (if you're boarding) DOES have an impact on your happiness on campus.
Don't let the "you can just peacefully co-exist" option fool you; it's important to have an established mutual respect and concern for each other. While it's true you don't have to be the very best of friends, it's so crucial to be a little more than cordial towards your roomie. You are literally sleeping in the same room as a stranger, so you want to have some sort of trust there. It's very possible that you and your random roommate couldn't be more different people, and that's OK. Thank God for RAs and their abilities to help you get a re-assignment if things really aren't working out.
Nobody is as judgmental as your peers in high school.
No matter what your interests or morals, you will find friends with those same beliefs that you will probably have for life. In college, it's totally acceptable to be who you are, and it's a great feeling not having to apologize for it.
The world isn't over if you miss one class or fail one assignment.
Of course, it's not something to be made a habit, but your grade really won't drop 20,000 points if you don't show up to class one day or totally tank a quiz/test. Everybody makes mistakes and has a busy schedule, so don't beat yourself up for it if/when it happens.
The food probably isn't as bad as everybody makes it seem to be.
Usually, students are just looking for a common-ground thing to complain about to one another. Granted, food made in bulk is hard to top the list of best meals you've ever had, but chances are your parents paid for your meal plan. You won't come to appreciate it fully until you have to watch your bank account rapidly decline as you pay for every morsel of food when you're out on your own, so shut up and just eat a slice of pizza.
Your friend's school is not better than yours, and vice versa.
She may have a bigger living space in her apartment than you, but she may not have a super cool TV station like the one you work at on campus. Every person has different needs and wants in a school, and there are pros and cons about every one (even you, Harvard), so campus envy shouldn't even be a thing.
ALWAYS put your health first.
This could mean mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual. (Hopefully not all four at the same time.) You need sleep, you need to step away from the schoolwork and just relax your mind, you need to hang out with friends that make you feel valued. If you put your best self forward, you'll get the best results in your academic life, guaranteed.
Try your very hardest and have as much fun as you can because your four years of college will feel like four seconds once it's all over.
