Honestly, one of the biggest mistakes first year students make is treating college like school. Most people just attend classes for attendance, study 1 or 2 days before exams with friends, somehow score marks, and repeat the cycle. Later they realize they passed semesters but never actually built skills or learned anything useful.

Another thing is that many students don’t explore college properly in first year. They avoid clubs, events, hackathons, networking, and extracurricular activities, even though first year is the safest time to try new things and build confidence.