As I am finishing up my last few weeks of my freshman year at the University of Maryland, I have taken around 25 credits. Those courses ranged from GenEd's like GEOL104, "Dinosaurs: A Natural History", and major specific courses like ENES100, "Intro to Engineering Design". The former I took as my scholars supporting course, and the latter I took because it is required. Of all the different classes I took, the most surprising thing about all of them is how important a good professor is. Of course, the same goes for high school, but it makes a world of difference in college. In my first semester here at UMD I took CHEM135, a chemistry class specifically for engineers, that combines ideas from general chemistry one and two, as well as organic chemistry. While I knew this would be a very hard course, I was unaware just how much I would struggle with it. I feel that I would have done a lot better had I picked a professor that had a good rating on PlanetTerp. Unfortunately, I ended up failing that class by a very small margin and had to retake it this semester with a new professor. This time around, I got an amazing instructor, who loves what she does and explains the material in a way that is easy for me to understand.
As an Engineering major, I find that it is very hard to establish close connections with faculty members, seeing as most of my classes are in lecture halls of more than 200 people and only one professor. I noticed that I have very good relationships with my professors from classes that are on the smaller side. I also highly recommend that you make friends and establish connections with people in your major that are a year or two above you, so they can help you out as much as possible, along with the professors in your specific department. I got very lucky, seeing as I am in a major with 10 people in my freshman cohort (got to love Fire Protection Engineering), that my intro class for my major was small, and taught by one of the leading professors in the department. I also highly recommend that you reach out to your advisors as mine were an incredible help when dealing with scheduling issues.
Another very important part of college is making friends. If you are lucky enough to know people going here, definitely meet up with them when you can, but also branch out. While it is easier said than done for most people, I found it worked best for me by picking one club and going to as many meetings as I could make it to throughout the semester. This not only gave me an outlet but also helped me start friendships that I consider to be very strong. I also recommend just sitting somewhere random on the first day of classes and sparking up a conversation with your neighbor, as that has worked well for me as well.
I was a straight A student in high school, which unfortunately meant I was not challenged enough as I should have been. I think that if I was challenged, I would have learned how to properly study and maybe I wouldn't have failed my chem class last semester. Learning these tactics early on in your college career will make it so much easier to get through your 300 and 400 level classes.