Like with any advice, the best advice I can give you about it is that you take what you feel applies to you and toss the rest. In any event, here it is...10. Explore and get to know yourself, then establish your long-term goals as early as possible. Establish intermediate goals to get you there. Formulate the immediate plan. Execute it. Revise your goals. Redo the last three steps over and over.9. Lead a healthy lifestyle both physically and mentally. Eat good food, exercise, go outside. Broaden your horizons. Meet people. Learn things unrelated to your field.8. Get rid of your television.7. You are too young to be bored. If you are bored it either means you are not pushing yourself enough or not living enough (or both). Don't let yourself be bored. Keep busy. Push yourself.6. Make the most out of your summers. 15-week vacations will be a lot less frequent later on. A summer without learning or experiencing something significant is a wasted one.5. Have an independent project in the back or front burner at all times. Have a book you are reading in your off-time (e.g. while riding the bus). Podcasts and books on tape make for great workout music. Finish one such book every few weeks.4. Read the textbook from cover to cover. Do every problem in the book even if that is not required. It is a pity to pay over $100 for a book you never read. Well... there are some books that are just not worth the effort, but at least do this with the ones you know are important.3. Be dedicated but make sure you live. You only get to turn 21 once. Make sure your friends tell you what happened. Never spend more than 3 weekends in a row without going to a social gathering and having a great time. Get hammered.2. Travel.1. Take your education into your own hands. Don't expect that you will learn by just following professor's, university and program prescriptions. Pursue your interests on your own in as much depth as time allows. Then pursue them some more even at the expense of some schoolwork.