Entering college, students often don’t know what to expect when it comes to this next step of their lives. Weber State students shared the things that surprised them about college.

“I didn’t realize that school would take so long. I thought my degree was a four year degree and it was a five year degree,” said Kindy Dodds, a junior. “My advice to incoming freshman is check ratemyprofessors.com.”

Ratemyprofessors.com makes it easy for students to decide who they would like to take classes from. This website, based entirely on the reviews of previous students, gives students who are new to a certain professor an idea of how difficult it is to succeed in that professor’s class.

“I really expected college to be a lot harder than it is. In high school they kept saying, ‘This really hard class that you are taking is preparing you for college.’ I got up here and realized that these classes are easier than some of my high school classes,” Nichole Richardson said.

Richardson added that as a freshman it is important to learn good study habits because you’ll need them for your more difficult, upper-division courses.

Centuracollege.edu recommends students learn the following habits: Dedicate a certain time and place to study, prioritize your time, read the chapter summary of a textbook before reading the chapter, find a study group and participate in class discussions.

“I didn’t expect there would be a big assignment due the next class period,” Kat Mari said. “Just do your work and get things in on time.”

Part of studying includes completing the assigned homework accurately and on time. By doing the homework, students are practicing the material and have a higher chance of retaining the information that they are learning.

“All the other colleges that I visited people did stuff, (they) had parties. That doesn’t often happen at Weber. People come here, they study and leave. Nobody socializes, gets together or parties,” Jeremy Cooper said. “It’s better than high school. There are a lot of career-changing options.”

Cooper added that students shouldn’t guess anything, they should always ask questions. He also recommends going to an adviser and seeing what classes a student needs to take for a certain degree or even for an associate’s degree.

As soon as students know what they would like to study, it is recommended that they see their department adviser in order to plan out their classes.

Without seeing an adviser, students have the chance of taking the incorrect classes and taking longer than they would like to receive their degrees.

As far as the social aspect of college goes, collegeview.com has some tips. Collegeview.com suggests that joining a study group will not only help students study but gives them the potential to meet new people.

“I expected to meet people but not quite as many people as I have met,” Haylee Ross said. “I also thought that the class sizes would be a lot larger than what they are. It’s nice that we are a smaller campus and can have smaller class sizes.”