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Don't ignore the instructions
One of the hardest things in life is accepting failure. In high school, it's incredibly easy to receive a zero on an assignment. Something as simple as forgetting to turn in an assignment, plagiarizing another's work or looking off of someone else's paper is grounds for failure. However, most of the time you can talk yourself out of the little things, such as page requirements, speaking off-topic or injecting too much fluff into a paper. In college, professors are a lot stricter and students must perform under much harsher restraints. From zero-tolerance plagiarism to deadlines, college courses are much less forgiving. The biggest mistake college students can make in class is ignoring or disobeying instructions. University professors expect a higher level of maturity than high school teachers do, which means they will expect you to know the rules and follow them. One way to avoid ending up on the wrong side of a college professor's nerves is to simply be aware of exactly what he or she wants for the assignment. Most simple questions can be answered from a professor's syllabus or assignment sheets. However, if you have any question about a rule or restraint, it can never hurt to just ask the professor. Miscommunication or misinterpretation of the rules can severely hinder one's grade or success in a certain class. I recently submitted a paper that had a requirement of 3-4 pages. I completed the paper having filled two pages and three-quarters of the third page. The paper passed through peer review fairly unscathed, and on submission day I was very proud of the final product. When I received the graded paper, despite positive reviews from peers, the paper received a 0 out of 150 points. If I asked my professor to clarify her terms of a "3-4 page" paper or simply asked her if my paper met requirements on peer editing day, I might have had a different result. Small things like this can have a big impact on your academic life.
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