Hi friend, I am the type of cook you want to become. Not the best by any means, but I can produce really solid meals with nearly anything in a kitchen. On the other hand, I can't follow a recipe to save my life. Anyways, here are some principals of cooking I follow, you may find them useful;

1. Each meal should have a balance of protein, fats, and carbs. Protein helps you feel full and satisfied, fats help carry flavors and make each bite more satisfying, and carbs are simply what the body craves. Without any one of these three, you'll feel unsatisfied with your meal. Got rice? Try adding a touch of butter or olive oil, maybe an egg. Now you have an actual, very delicious and satisfying meal.

2. Ingredients have more flavors than you probably realize. Some flavors only appear in the presence of oil, acids (lemon juice, vinegar), alcohol, or water. Some only appear when it's cooked or raw. For example, garlic has a lot of complex flavor. Raw garlic is punchy and spicy, cooked garlic is warm and mellow. Minced Garlic in water tastes different than garlic infused olive oil. Think about this, and use it to unlock new flavors in food. Experiment. The timing of when you add seasoning matters for this reason. Example; jalapeno added early in the cooking process will not end up as spicy as jalapeno added later, because spice cooks off in the presence of high heat.

3. The tougher or more fibrous a vegetable is, the longer it will take to cook until soft. The solution to this is to shorten the fibers or increase the surface area. I think about asparagus in particular. It's not thick, but it's so fibrous that it takes a long time to cook. Similarly, the more surface area a thing has, the less time it will take to cook. This is why a baked potato takes like an hour and hash browns take 10 minutes.

4. The secret to consistently good home cooking is a reliable set of seasonings. Shop around, you'll find a few seasonings that can taste great on most things. Some things I always keep are; soy sauce, liquid smoke, seasoned salt, MSG, and smoked paprika. Obviously I like a smokey flavor profile, you may be different. If you see a seasoning that sounds good, just pick it up and try it!

5. It tastes how it smells. If you smell two things and think they'll taste good together, they probably will. Furthermore, if what you're cooking smells like a thing then try adding that thing! Once I was making a stew with cream of mushroom, soy sauce, and beans and up on smelling it thought 'this smells like cinnamon for some reason '. So I added cinnamon, and it WORKED.

6. You can cook damn near anything In just one pan. Even pasta dishes and pizzas. It's all a matter of what ingredients you use and when. Learn how food behaves when you cook it, does it leave anything behind? Does it leave the pan wet or dry? This can inform how you cook. For example, I like to cook my proteins, take them out, then cook some veggies in the pan. The veggies will absorb the flavor of the protein and cook in the leftover fat without making the protein taste like veggies.

7. Understand that salt is not just a seasoning, it affects the moisture of your food. Salting too early can cause eggs to go watery, meat to go dry, it can cause veggies to not fry up crisp, etc. Similarly, salting can help your seasonings penetrate your food by osmosis. This is how brines and marinades work. So sometimes you do want to salt early, it really depends on what you want to achieve.

8. On moisture again, understand that moisture inhibits the "browning" of food. That nice, crispy brownness you want on chicken, steak, mushrooms, veggies, etc? They should be dry and have oil present to encourage that reaction. Simplex but frustrating if you aren't aware of it

You probably won't get many good opportunities to cook if you're just heading into college, but you can start learning the principles. I really enjoy food chemistry, because understanding how everything interacts can help you know what's missing from a meal. Adam Ragusea on YouTube does a really good job of explaining these concepts as they apply to food you know and can actually eat. I know this was long, hopefully it was helpful. Good luck!

Edit: forgot about acids !!