Watch Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate"

+1 red. Though that's more for the college grads out there..

My advice: College is easy, especially going into teaching, so be sure to make the most of the social benefits and experiences that only college can offer. College is a blast.

+1 to what jmo said. Get on it quick, because if you don't get them in your first few years, it just becomes harder and harder.

-person without a summer internship

If you like sports at all make sure you get a coaching endorsement. Willingness to coach 7th grade volleyball or some such "low level" coaching position can make it a lot easier to get a teaching job, and can add roughly 10% to your teaching income. If you're not the athletic type, consider preparing yourself to be a speech or drama or debate coach, for the same reasons as coaching a sport.

I echo JMO. Though, i was in a fraternity and had a blast!

Always remember, you're at college to get a degree and an education that will set you up to be successful in life. It's not one long party.

Lastly, consider the U.S. Military as an option/interim career. ROTC obligation is only 4 years and enlistments can be shorter. The military also has a program called "troops to teachers" which includes funding for your teaching certificates and assistance in placing you in a position. (http://www.dantes.doded.mil/Programs/TTT.html). Being a veteran is always something to be proud of, and it gets you hiring preference for a lot of different places. Also, transferring from the active to the reserves after your service is completed is a FANTASTIC way to have a secondary income stream, since teachers starting out don't make very much money.

@Jmo - Should I start worrying about that immediately, or make it through my freshman year just enjoying the "college experience"?

@redhouse - Will do.

@Tom - I hope it is easy. I have had an extremely rigorous high school career, taking a multitude of IB, Honors, and AP classes. Although I am not going into teaching because i think it will be easy, I really do want to teach.

@FlemGem - I plan on doing so, especially since I want a to teach history, and at least at my high school everyone calls them "coach" because all the history teachers save one teaches a sport. I also plan on getting certified to teach more than one subject, giving me options.

@Delta - I would consider the military, but my medical record is too long and troubled for it to be an option.

I would start right away finding organizations. Ask your adviser what the best professional organizations are, and then look at the school site. Any good organization is going to help you make contacts and they rarely cost more then 20 dollars a semester. I was the recruitment leader in the Association for Computing Machinery at my school and got some big name companies to come talk to students. It's how I got my job and how 1/3 of our members or so got good jobs. I imagine it's different with teaching, but any good org will introduce you to the things you need to know and help you get in contact with people in the industry.

The good thing about professional organizations is that they are fun. They will introduce you to other people at your school who are interested in the same things you are, and help you meet people right off the bat. Going and finding 1 or 2 good orgs isn't going to take away from your social experience at school, it's going to improve it. The members are college students just like you who already have figured out how to balance partying and having fun with being serious about building your career.

Look for Co-op's and internships after your first year or two. Look for something paid, but take something unpaid if you can't find anything paying. Experience before you graduate is what almost every employer is looking for these days, no matter what field you choose.

Start thinking about your college graduation right now.

Source: I am graduating from college.

You're fucked already. Join the army.

I don't particularly agree with jmo about the universal importance of professional organizations, at least right away; that said, he's obviously found them useful, and many people do. So given that I also know that some people don't, I'd say, give them a shot for a semester or two, go to their meetings, get involved, and then evaluate if you think it is useful for you. This probably depends partially on what career you're going into.

The one thing that I would say that nobody has so far is that grades actually do matter, and especially early. Focus on working as hard as you need to to do good work in your classes, and build good relationships with teachers. It's going to be your teachers who people will want to hear evaluations from later on if you ever decide you want graduate school (or a lot of different academic and internship opportunities); and your grades will be crucial in all those things.

On that note, cultivate relationships with your professors. Don't just show up to class. Go to their office hours. I don't mean make up reasons to go; but if there's something you're struggling with, why not go ask about it? They actually like this, typically; and they'll definitely know better who you are and what you're about.

I said before that early grades are especially important. It's not actually the case that grades later in college are any more important; it's just that people usually figure it out by then, but by then it's often too late. Many times I have talked to people who started doing good work later in college, but who had already goofed off for two years and either not gotten into their major (probably not an issue in this case), or badly hurt their chances of doing something that they've realized they want to do (graduate school, a particular, hard-to-get job, etc.)

So do have fun, but as others said, remember what you're there for.

Ha Like I already said, I can't join the army or I would.

@Semck - Thank you for the advice! I have always been pretty good about keeping up on my grades, and my last 3 years of schooling has been basically college preparation on steroids.

The best advice I can give is to learn as much about things that interest you while you're there, even if they don't fit into your major. Never again will you be surrounded by so many intellectuals in such a wide variety of fields. Take a course in Biology. Take a course in Medieval Europe. Take a course in Badminton.

I agree with semck, the organization is only going to help you if it's a good one, that's why asking your adviser for the best ones is normally the way to go, look at which ones the top students who graduated last year were in, etc to find helpful ones.

In addition to what he said on professors, they are the people you are going to be asking for letters of recommendation, so the higher they think of you the better!

@abgemacht - There is a Harry Potter class offered at my school, and I am super excited and hopeful I will get to join :) Probably not freshman year, since Juniors/seniors are the majority that get into the class, but in a few years it would be awesome since I grew up on those stories. I go to registration on the 14th of June.
I plan on taking many, many history classes. Everything I can.
Would you happen to speak a lot/bit of German, abgemacht?

"Never again will you be surrounded by so many intellectuals in such a wide variety of fields."

That's not quite true. It would depend on where you teach. Most of my colleagues (I'm a high school math teacher) have masters and/or phds and they are very knowledgeable about their fields and a number of things. So that's a bit of an exaggeration.

Moreover, I've found that there's a number of intellectuals on webdip as well (although most of us have been labeled as damn-liberals or fascists or elites).

But I will echo abgemacht's advice about learning whatever is interesting to you. I did a double degree in math and physics, but I also did two minors in psychology and history of science. I've found my minors have given me another lens to look at the world, and I wish I could have done a couple of other minors in philosophy and anthropology.

lol well a HP class isn't what I had in mind, but whatever floats your boat : )

I can make myself look very foolish while trying to speak German.

How helpful is knowing a second language after college? Perhaps a teacher could shed some light for me, since I don't really plan on teaching the language. How far should I take a language? I have nearly 4 years of German under my belt. Should I continue, and for how long?
@jmo - I will keep that in mind! Thanks!

@zultar - I want to become a High School History teacher, however I would also be fine with teaching math. Is it worth becoming licensed to teach both under the idea of becoming more fanciable to a future employer? History is my passion, but I am crazy good at math and it has more job security from what I have heard, and would be fine teaching that as well.

Since you are going to get your undergrad, I would advise that you do both math and history. Not only would it make more interesting, it would give you a better appreciation for both. One thing I did not get was a history of math class and I should have. So I would get certified to teach both, but I would focus my classes on the subject that I'm most interested in. Also, it's worth it to get a master in the arts of teaching right after you are done with your undergrad. Your pay scale (if public) or negotiation powers (private) will be much better.

Also, some schools would love to have that flexibility of having a teacher that can teach both. If you can play some sports and coach some, you would be a hot commodity.

In any event, you've gotta go deep into your subject and explore the reason why you care about it so much. That would make your classes more interesting, get you better grades, and most importantly as a teacher, make you a better teacher because you'll be able to get your students to care about the subject the way you think they should.

If you are crazy good at math, then it is definitely only going to help you get something on your transcript showing that.

A math degree is amazing for career flexibility. Opens a ton of doors both in and outside of teaching. If you don't hate math I'd take Zultar and semck up on their advice.

@zultar - Do I have to do anything special to get certified to coach a sport, or a group like Drama/speech?

@semck - good point!

Harry Potter?

**sigh**

You'd be better served taking a world religions course or a 300 level history class ... but ... whatever rocks your boat.

If you can do math it would behoove you to get at least a minor in math. Math teachers are orders of magnitude more hireable than history teachers.

@Delta - I plan on taking OVER9000 history classes while in college, but I still want to enjoy myself and the class sounds like a lot of fun.
I will also be taking a lot of religion classes, either religious theory or world religion or something, because that is another topic I am highly interested in. Nothing like that is offered at my high school.

@abgemacht - Which is why I was planning on doing both, and the opinions from everybody have just reaffirmed my want to do that.

First off, it's University of Wisconsin–River Falls. Pull yourself together, freshman.

At least give rushing a fraternity a try. You'll have constant opportunities to enjoy yourself all four years (well, three and a half), and make the type of friendships that last forever. Like anything, you can't be an idiot about it, but going Greek was just about the best decision I made in college.

Enjoy yourself to the fullest your first week on campus. At no other point in your life will you be around hundreds or even thousands of people exactly your age who are desperately looking to make friends and have sex. No embarrassing thing you do will last, but the daring things will be the foundation for a great four years and great friendships.

Obviously grades are the most important thing and must be your first priority. But the second one always needs to be socializing with people and having fun. Every night when you didn't have to stay in is a night wasted.

Don't underestimate how helpful liberal arts courses can be. They're very good for those 'soft skills' that you won't get in the hard sciences - public speaking, critical thinking, writing, conversing, formulating a logical thesis and arguments, etc. Even though an English course may superficially feel worthless, it will pay off in the long run.