Advice for starting Community College in 2 days.

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I'm starting CC in 2 days (I waited for the Fall Semester) and I've been unbelievably nervous, having daily meltdowns and literally pooping my pants.

The thing that's worrying me is that my business law professor emailed me some stuff for the class and it looks hard. I'm thinking of just dropping that one class last minute, but if I do, I might lose my dental insurance again, and getting it back is the reason I signed up.

My therapist says it's normal to be anxious and my mom just keeps pointing out that I still had anxiety and meltdowns even for the 10 months that I've been home doing nothing.

Any advice?

It is normal to be anxious for what you perceive to be a hard class this semester. College can be a challenge on many levels. My advice is to try to go in with an open mind and first try the class before thinking that you cannot do it. (This is something that I tell my students every semester. Most of the ones starting out in college dread having to take a chemistry course because their parents, siblings, friends, etc all told them that it was the hardest class that they ever had to take.) Well, if you go into a class thinking like that, then the class will naturally be much harder to learn because you have put a mental block wall up. Just give the class a fair chance. If you find you are struggling in it, find a tutor (or the teacher) and work on it as much as you can with them. Many college students simply resist asking for help when they need it and that is the real why they fail. Remember, the only dumb question is the one that was not asked.

Ok, the first thing that many college professes do is weed out the unserious or lazy students.
They tend to either do that with an email like what you received or with their first lecture.

It is probably an exaggeration and it probably won't be that hard once you get into the class...
Take note of the word "probably."

The reason some teachers do that is to try to make sure they get a class of students that are actually willing to learn.

Yeah, I was wondering why they sent an email with links to chapter 18 when they said we would start with chapter one.

I graduated from CC in the spring of 2014 and have since transferred to a University, and I was nervous about starting Community College just like you. Here are some things that worked for me in my 2.5 years of Community College.

-Getting academic accommodations.
If you have an official Aspergers diagnosis, submit that and any other necessary paperwork to your community college's disabilities office (I have to imagine your CC has one) so that you can get some academic accommodations made to make things easier on you. You hand in a letter that the disabilities services gives you for each semester to give to each of your professors, and they are not allowed to ask why you have it and they are supposed to provide you with those accommodations. I have it so that I can record my lectures to refer back to them if needed, extra time on tests, and the ability to take a test in a quiet, low stress level environment.

-Leaving earlier than needed
My school was half an hour away from where I live, and the road I took could get congested with traffic certain times of the day. So I made it a habit to leave an hour before the class started so that I had a large time cushion if I did hit any traffic. You don't have to do it as long as I did, but this will keep the stress level down some when commuting to school.

-Join a club
We Aspies may not be the social butterfly that some college students are, and with community college it can be hard to make friends in classes because it is not like high school where the same students generally have the same classes as you unless you are in a specialized kind of class (for me it was the theatre classes). So the next best thing is to join a club. My CC had a wide variety of clubs that met during the 'college hour' or the period of time no classes are held and I joined the theatre club and met some people that way. At the University I transferred to I have joined the Improv club and the Gaming Club as well, where I met some fellow Aspies.

-Use flash cards to help you study
I used to have a lot of trouble studying for tests and exams. I then found that using flash cards an consistent repetition really went a long way to helping me with tests an exams. If the professor has given you a study guide or said what chapters a test will be on, make flash cards for everything possible, even if it may not be on the test. It is better to be safe than sorry and the scout motto is 'Be Prepared'. When they are completed, look over then a few time and when you feel ready, start quizzing yourself. My method is anything I get right or very close to right goes in one pile and anything I get wrong, not quite right, or didn't know it at all goes in another pile. When you have gone through all of them, look over the ones that you got wrong again, mix the two piles back together, and start again. Keep doing this over and over until the initial pile becomes the correct pile. It may sound like a lot of work, and it can be, but trust me, this goes a long way to getting a good test score. If you feel overwhelmed at any point, step away from it for half an hour or so, relax, an then go back to it when you have a clear mind.

I hope that my experience with Community College has helped you out at least a little bit. If you have any other questions please feel free to ask me. Best of luck with college!! !

Thank you & I did get those letters for my teachers.

I wish I was taking theatre...I was going to but switched to embalming bc I thought it was cool and makes good $. I think I might switch back after the first semester.

No problem. Glad you have those letters. They will go a long way in making college a bit more suited to your needs.

For me theatre has really brought me out of my shell sort to speak. I know that it is the number one degree to avoid if you want to make a lot of money and get rich, and us art majors get a lot of crud about it from STEM majors, but money can't buy happiness. Besides, there are a number of people in that field that have enjoyed that level of success and I have faith that I can get there, or at the very least get close.

Even if it is not your major or something you want to do as a career, take some kind of theatre class, weather it be performing or behind the scenes stuff. I feel that being exposed to all the different forms of art is important and the ability to be creative and to create is just as important as anything else. The theatre and acting classes I have taken have improved my speaking and communication skills better than any speech therapy I did in school before.

Also, give this embalming thing a fair chance. You may actually like it. If you go in thinking you will be changing it by the next semester, you won't enjoy it as much and may miss out on a lot. By the way, what is an embalming major?

Well, it's not a major major. It's called Funeral Service Prep at my CC. I'm taking a certificate and then I'd have to transfer after 9 months of courses to finish for a degree. The job of embalming is preparing corpses

Anyway, I actually just got home from my first day a few hours ago, and I survived. It seems that I get along better with older students, like working single moms or the like than I do with students my own age.

That doesn't surprise me much, though, because as a young child, I attended a private school that lasted for 9 years and used to hang out with older middle school students when I was in lower primary. It was probably a bit detrimental at that age though, because I was a bit precocious in not-so-good ways and would dance provocatively in exchange for cafeteria food because my parents always packed me lunches that were a bad fit for my sensory needs and I'd be hungry and desperate for food that wouldn't make me gag.

I also did mock impressions of teachers, celebrities, foreigners, and other students in exchange for a few fries. When my parents found out, they said I was pathetic and making a fool of myself and that I was spoiled and should just eat the food I was given. Obviously they didn't "get" it.

Most people actually did think the gagging was an excuse to get treats, but I really couldn't help it.

That is actually what I figured it was, I just didn't realize that such things were offered at community colleges. I thought you had to go to a very specialized school for such a profession.

Glad to hear that your first day went well. Take it one day at a time, make sure your work is done on time, and work to get to know at least a small handful of people.

I can understand the getting along better with older students. For the most part, I tend to be the same way at times. For various reasons I had to 'grow up' at an early age and was very mature for my age for an Elementary and Middle school student, and to this day I still am though I have 'loosened up' some.

As long as you have some group of people you are friendly with, that would be enough because then you can possibly take future classes with them.

P.S. I also really like your new avatar, that is one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

Yeah, I'm really into it and do the fandom and stuff on Tumblr. I've made a lot of friends on that site because of it.

When I worked at Cracker Barrel, one of my regular customers was an embalmer. He said it was quiet, methodic work and he found it satisfying, once he got over the aversion to touching the deceased. I did think it was funny, when he started dating one of the servers, when she would come into work wearing his jacket. People would always double-take when they read the logo.

Anyway, glad you're surviving. I'm the same with getting on better with the older students.

And, MAN have you brought back some memories. Of course, we were really poor, so, what food we had is what we had, and if I couldn't eat it, I went without. Luckily, my Mom wasn't often around at mealtimes to see me gagging, or she would've gotten furious, and that never ended well.
My husband still thinks my gagging (usually at people who wear perfume) is a drama thing, but, believe me, if I could help it, I would. Also, he loves weird bread and occasionally gets mad at me when I won't eat it (I love sarah lee soft and smooth).
That's the best thing about being an adult, being able to prepare my own food (most of the time, sometimes when I travel for a press event, it's a hungry couple of days if I don't have time to slip out and get something I can tolerate putting in my mouth).

Just curious, Ms Dorkness:

Did the management treat you better at Cracker Barrel than they do at other restaurants?

When I went to Cracker Barrel once (somewhere in PA), there was a waitress who had Down Syndrome.

I can say without a doubt that Cracker Barrel was the best place I worked at (restaurant/retail wise). They had training, they had progressive raises, an EAP that was widely known about and vacation time.
Of course, it's still a restaurant and I still had to put up with being treated like carp by customers that the managers would still placate for no reason other than to shut them up and get them out the door, which is stressful.
There was one manager, Dennis, who got mad at me for calling in sick (once), and told everyone I was calling off because I was drunk, and why? because I came to work drunk all the time (I did not drink at the time, I just have a neuromuscular thing). My sister worked for the same guy and ultimately ended up quitting because of him. I think he was the GM, the retail manager, RJ, was much more professional, as were the other restaurant managers.

I worked there for ~2 1/2 years. Started as a cashier, but, was allowed to do things like unpack the truck, set up displays, then do prep work in the kitchen. Obviously, I preferred the back of house stuff. They liked it because I fixed stuff and figured out how to use their pricing guns more efficiently and always organized things.
Good company and seemed to be very consistent from store to store.