This article will discuss the 7 habits of highly effective college students are. If you need to apply any of the habits above, read the following article first.

After reading this article, apply the habits and enjoy a more effective college experience.

1. Decide what to be (ideally)

The first point to understand is that you are going to be your own worst enemy.

In college, you will be surrounded by smart, motivated, and ambitious people. Most of your professors, advisors, employers, and neighbors know how brilliant you are.

Therefore, if you don’t know what you want, you will never find it.

Find what you are passionate about and pursue that. If you cannot see yourself doing that for the rest of your life, maybe you should switch majors or locations.

Also, don’t settle.

You do not want to settle for the 8–5 workday if you have the potential to be an entrepreneur. If you want to make more money, follow your passion, and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

College should not be a place for students to learn about how much things cost and what they will get out of the education. In college, you should be learning what you want to learn.

This is the time for you to make mistakes and discover what you love and what you hate.

Focus on building relationships with your professors and peers. Take advantage of every opportunity, no matter how small.

By building relationships with the people around you, you will build networks and develop strong networks.

Use your college years as an opportunity to build your network. It will be a powerful and effective networking tool when you are out in the workforce.

2. Improve your skillswoman wearing blue denim jacket holding book

Another one of the most effective habits that will make your college experience more effective is to improve your skills. I do not mean that you have to enroll in an additional college program.

You don’t have to take a programming class. You don’t have to enroll in a more advanced art class.

You don’t even have to try and pass the U.S. citizenship exam.

All you need to do is take classes that will improve your soft skills.

One of the most important skills that college can teach you is how to communicate. Many college students are afraid of speaking in front of people or telling people how they feel.

My advice is that the very first course that you should take is:

  • Conflict resolution
  • Persuasion
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Tone of voice
  • Listening
  • People skills

While you are improving your skills in these areas, you will also find that your skills will improve. You will learn to be more effective at answering questions, giving presentations, and handling arguments.

Emotional intelligence is one of the most undervalued and underused skills in society.

Most people use emotions as a weapon rather than a weapon for self-defense. This creates cognitive dissonance.

People do not feel that they have emotions that can make them better leaders. As a result, they never strive to become better leaders.

The solution: learn emotional intelligence and use it to your advantage. By acquiring this skill, you will become better at seeing how your emotions will affect people and make them feel better.

Conflict resolution is just another form of persuasion. In some cases, it is more effective to argue than to compromise.

Both strategies involve changing another person’s mind to reach an agreement.

Please don’t listen to what other people say; use their words to make your own conclusions.

Persuasion involves telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.

3. Delegate

Learn how to delegate.

Make sure that you have the skills to take care of your responsibilities and to delegate them. If you’re one of those people that love to work, then your college experience is the perfect place for you to go back to work and get paid to do it.

If you are more of the go-getter type, you must learn how to let go of things to pile up. Delegating is a skill that you need to learn to be a successful entrepreneur.

If you cannot delegate and take care of things at your own pace, you will likely burn out.

4. Think outside of the boxYoung people in conversation

You will do a lot of thinking in college. Most of the thinking will be confined to the classroom or the library.

When you go to college, no one tells you what you can or can’t do. There is no one telling you what you can’t do.

Your imagination only limits the world of possibility. You are free to explore ideas that have never been explored before.

What are you going to do with this freedom?

Decide to come to college and embrace your free-thinking, creativity and follow your dreams.

5. Learn how to cook and make your own food

We are often told that we can’t cook or that we don’t have the skills. College is the perfect opportunity for you to learn how to cook and make your own food.

Many college kitchen programs teach cooking skills.

Take advantage of the opportunity. You don’t need to worry about starving because you can’t cook.

All you need is a refrigerator, a microwave, some pots, pans, and utensils.

6. Learn how to codepeople sitting down near table with assorted laptop computers

Coding is a skill that can benefit you in many ways in life. It will improve your creativity, make you more successful at work, and allow you to think differently.

Find a coding program that you are interested in. In the ’90s, it was popular to learn Java and Perl. The programming language of today is Python.

The programs are often found at GitHub, a site where developers can share and collaborate on coding projects. GitHub even offers an online course to teach coding.

7. Learn a foreign language

Many of us will never need to speak a foreign language fluently, but it is still important to learn one.

Learning a foreign language will give you a deeper understanding of the culture of the countries you visit.

The mind is more influenced by the words we speak and the languages that we speak.

Learn how to speak another language, and it will influence your worldview. It will change the way you think and how you express yourself.