Realize that a successful college career requires hard work, dedication, and sacrifice.
Nothing worth while is easy, as the old saying goes, and this certainly is true of a college education. A successful college career requires years of hard work, and you can't expect to be a success without devotion and sacrifice.
This is an unpleasant metaphor, but college is a sort of "weeding" process. People get good jobs in part because of how well they have proved themselves through their hard work and dedication in college. They have demonstrated that they have what it takes to succeed. Many people begin college but do not succeed at it. There are a limited number of good jobs out there, and college helps "weed out" the people who are unlikely ever to get those jobs.
I firmly believe that most people can be successful in college and that the amount of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice is what separates those who are successful from those who are not.
Make your education a top priority.
Don't defeat yourself.
As just about anyone who has earned a college degree can tell you, there will be moments when you don't think you can do it, moments when you doubt your ability to succeed. This is normal, but don't let the doubts themselves defeat you.
I remember vividly such moments myself, when a course seemed too hard, when the work ahead of me seemed like too much, but then I decided that if I was going to be "defeated" by something, I was at least going to give it my best effort. If a college course was too much for me, so be it, but I was not going to let my doubts defeat me. I did not want to live with the lingering idea that I did not succeed at something because I did not even give myself a fair chance to succeed.
We can't be successful at everything, and you might face challenges that are too much for you (at the time), but don't work against yourself and let your doubts defeat you.
Give Yourself a Reasonable Workload.
One major cause of students not succeeding is an unreasonable expectation concerning the amount of time college requires. Some students give themselves such as unreasonable workload that success is nearly impossible. It's not unusual for an instructor to hear a student say something like "I'm sorry that I did not complete the assignments, but I work full time, go to school full time, and take care of three children."
The general rule is that you should expect to spend a minimum of two hours working on assignments outside of class for every hour that you spend in class. So imagine that you are taking 12 credit hours. This number of credit hours requires that you spend at least 10 hours a week attending class, along with at least 20 hours a week working on assignments outside of class (remember that this is a minimum!). And you probably spend at least five hours a week getting ready for class and driving to and from the college. That's 35 hours a week as a minimum amount of time you need to devote to your classes, and that's about the equivalent of a full-time job. Now imagine having a full-time job as well.
I can't imagine someone thinking that he or she should have no problem working two full-time jobs, yet many students think that they should have no problems handling a full-time job and a full load of college courses. These expectations are unreasonable, and they often lead to failure.
Don't set yourself up to fail. Realize that a successful college experience takes a lot of time, probably a lot more time that 35 hours a week for a full-time student. Give yourself a reasonable workload, and you should greatly increase your likelihood for success.