I graduated college 5 years ago and wish I'd known this earlier: the specific knowledge you learn matters less than learning HOW to learn. Develop good study habits and critical thinking skills and you can adapt to any subject or career.

Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style' is a tiny book that will make you a better writer almost overnight. Every student should own a copy. It's cheap, it's short, and the advice in it never goes out of date.

Don't pull all-nighters. The research is clear that sleep is when your brain actually consolidates what you learned. Studying until 3am and then taking a test exhausted is worse than studying less and sleeping. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.

The library is full of free resources people forget about — encyclopedias, reference librarians who will literally do research for you, study guides. And the librarians are thrilled when someone actually asks for help. Don't be shy about it.

There's no one-size-fits-all answer here. Experiment with different approaches and pay attention to what actually works for you, not what worked for your friend. Learning styles are real — some people learn by reading, some by doing, some by listening.