It’s never too early to prepare for college, and starting in June can help alleviate any stress from the end of the summer. Read below to see what you can do in June to help yourself prepare.
1. Either Craft or Update Your Resume
Do you have a resume/CV? Is your resume as good as you want it to be?
If you answered no to either of those questions, the June before your first semester of college marks a great opportunity to revisit your resume. Why?
- You give yourself the opportunity to examine what you have done
- You can see what you should be doing
- Everything is fresh in your mind
- It’s ready if something comes up during your first semester
- It’s one less thing to worry about once school starts
Once school begins, there’s so much focus on getting acquainted with the campus, making friends, and succeeding in your courses. While all of those are extremely important, it’s also important to start early on career preparation. That’s why, if you have time in June, it’s the perfecting your resume is the perfect thing to do to prepare for college. More likely than not, your college apps aren’t too far behind you. Your experience is still fresh in your mind, and you can write it all down while it is.
This will then help you to start (non-stressfully) thinking about what you want to do in college to add to that resume. When you go to apply for internships or jobs, you will also have that resume ready to go!
2. Create a List of Stuff You Need for Your Dorm
Although June is a little early to shop for many people, it doesn’t hurt to start making a list of what you will need in a dorm. Some colleges have suggested lists on their websites or that they send through the mail. Mailers normally come around late July-early August, so if you would prefer to use their version, there’s no need to do it now.
However, for many of us, we wait until the last minute to start shopping. If we don’t go in with a list, we might also come out with a bunch of things that we don’t need–or vice versa. It helps to divide everything into categories–kitchen appliances, clothes, blankets and bedding, bathroom stuff, etc. By doing this, you’ll have it all more clearly labelled, and it will be much faster to shop when the time comes. You’ll also have an eye out for sales if they happen to pop up (i.e., Prime Day!).
3. Contact Your Roommate(s)
While colleges do notify you of who your roommate(s) will be at varying times, it helps to reach out as soon as possible. Like I mention in this article, it helps to build that friendship early on. You can work out who’s buying what, your goals for the year, and the beginning of what your dynamic will be like. Most importantly, you can prepare for college by starting to reach out to people. Especially if you’re an introvert, this can be a bit of an adjustment. It’s not impossible, though, and it can be an easy start by reaching out to your roommate first. They will appreciate the effort, and it’ll make them feel more at ease. Start that relationship off on the right foot, and make sure to start it early!
4. Start Considering an Organization System
The hardest part about college is figuring out how to manage your time. In your first semester, you’ll have a lot of changes, and adapting to the freedom can be difficult.
What helps this?
Organization. The sooner you find your system, this will be easier. Consider how you’ll spend your time, how you’ll arrange your schedule, how you want to keep everything in your (tiny) room, and so on. Start looking into things that will help you–shoe organizers, different types of boxes and cube organizers, sticky notes, color coding, planners, etc. The sooner you start to figure it out and the less occupied your mind is when you do it, it will help. Just remember that you’re going to be 100% in charge of you schedule and that you need to accommodate for that.
5. Look Into What You Will Need for Classes
From books to materials to information, it helps to be prepared for your classes. While I wouldn’t suggest getting your books this early (you might not end up using all of them or you might not have your book list yet), it can help to prepare. This includes getting your school supplies in one place, figuring out if you’ll need lab supplies, and looking into the best deals. Additionally, it’s useful to check RateMyProfessors to see what people have said about the course or the professor in the past. This can help you prepare for what you will mentally need for the class. This is also a good time to make sure you are happy with your courses. If Rate My Professors says all bad things about professors, it’s good to start looking out in June for alternatives. Once more, the way that you prepare for college is simply by being prepared in the first place.
6. Check Your Email (School and Personal)
As tempting as it is to just ignore email over the summer, it’s crucial to stay updated on what’s going on. Colleges send out a lot of information over the summer months. Whether it’s a simple newsletter, a bill, or crucial information about your move in, it’s important to stay updated on these things. Similar to making an organization system, it helps to create folders for your emails. I liked to organize my school emails into ones related to school events, general, bills, scholarships/financial aid, various clubs, Honors, my major, my minor, etc. This is super helpful because it makes it easier to navigate.
Additionally, depending on your school, you will need to make sure that you are logged into your school account if they don’t automatically send it to your personal one. For me, having the two helps me to compartmentalize everything and keep it straight. Using a flagging system to highlight the important ones is also useful. However, the most useful thing to prepare for college is to get into a routine that will carry on through the next four years.
7. Make Sure Your Bills Are Paid! + Scholarships
June is the time to learn your school’s billing system if you haven’t already. Some colleges require the entire semester’s tuition to be paid by a certain date in the early summer, and you don’t want to have late fees tacked onto that. Part of college is figuring out how to be an adult, and huge part of figuring out how to be an adult is doing finances. Learning the system and marking down the dates payments are due is very helpful. Additionally, once you’re not dealing with every other aspect of your life, it helps to start looking for scholarships. These can be both scholarships from your school and external scholarships. Throughout my college experience, having financial aid was what made a ton of things possible, so I’d highly recommend this!
8. Look into Your School More + Make Plans
Does your school have any traditions? Any famous landmarks? Anything that stands out to you?
This can be a great time to look into those. June is the month to get stoked for college! Figure out what opportunities lie ahead of you before you’re stuck with the logistics of college. One fun thing that I liked to do was figure out what movies had taken place on my campus. I learned that Bring It On had been filmed there (in part), and during my freshman year, I checked out those locations. I also looked into different alumni, different clubs, and anything else that might make my time there more memorable. Additionally, you can check out what eateries will be there so that you can figure out if you’ll need to make diet accommodations throughout the year.
9. Deep Clean Your Room (And Your Computer)
There’s something very cathartic about cleaning. When you’re in a transition stage like the summer before college, it can be a fantastic thing to do. As you clean, you can look back on old memories. You can also figure out which clothes you want to keep and which ones you want to get rid of. Although it isn’t a requirement to switch “uniforms” when you get to college, many people do go through at least a small style evolution. By cleaning out your closet, you can figure out what you need and don’t need, and ultimately update your college shopping list.
Additionally, you can prepare for college by deep cleaning your computer. If you’re anything like me, you have a vaguely organized organization system for high school assignments on your laptop. Between having things on your personal computer and having them in your school account (be warned–that gets deleted, so make sure to save everything you want), it gets a little messy. Take this as an opportunity to scan any work that you might need to reference for classes, give those assignments some neat little folders (by subject or school year works best), and neatly classify it into high school. Once you get to college, you’ll have a much easier time navigating your laptop.
10. Find Any College Social Groups
Whether it’s an Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or GroupMe group, it can help to get connected with other people from your school. If you connect with upperclassmen, you can get their perspective on the college experience there. Usually, someone will set this up on some platform for your incoming class. It can be a fantastic way to prepare for college because you’re able to get to know people and see answers to questions that you likely have. There’s power in numbers, and that’s the beauty of finding an online social group for your college.
