Here are five tips to make adjusting to college a little bit easier:

1. Learn how to cook something - anything!

If you're culinarily challenged, you need to find a staple food, and figure out how to prepare it. Grumbles in the tummy need to addressed. You can't just fuel your body with booze and junk food, you need to learn how to prepare healthy, balanced meals. Find a local hippie store and stock up on some all-natural and organic ingredients. Find a local deli and bakery and do the whole European open-sandwich thing. Eat falafels, Chinese food or barbeque in your backyard. Eat balanced meals often, you'll need the constant supply of energy.

2. Don't be a hermit, but don't party too hard.

You can't just hole up in your room, but sometimes you have to. Make yourself available for social gatherings, shindigs, fiestas and so forth, just be sure that you know when to hit the books. Time management is a critical part of the college experience.

3. Do your work already.

Classes will be much less difficult if you keep up with your homework. Do your assignments when you're supposed to, so that you can participate in class discussions and follow your lectures with interest. If you've already introduced yourself to the material, then it'll be a whole lot easier to build on your informed foundation.

4. Review your notes after lecture so that you can retain the info that you've just been exposed to.

Your goal isn't a grade. Your goal is long-term retention of interesting and useful information. Take award-winning notes and review them right after your lecture. If you just sit and pay attention, you'll do just fine, but if you have a written record of your classes, and you review this record constantly, you will remember the info for quite a long time.

5. Keep in touch with the people you love, always.

Just because you live away from home doesn't mean you need to sever all ties with your old network of friends and family. Pick up the phone, write an email or make a weekend visit. Don't lose touch with the people you care about, when you go back home, you'll be happy that you didn't. There's never a good excuse for losing contact with someone you care about.

The adjustment period exists, but you'll be over it before you know it. Learn to cook. Get out and about, but do your work. Take better notes than anyone else, and review them often. If you miss people, call them. The more you focus on taking care of business, you'll automatically adjust to your new surroundings.