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High school graduation is a memorable milestone in every student's life. Now that your senior year is history, it's time to look ahead to the next chapter. As you go off to college this fall you will be entering a time of newly found freedom and yet huge responsibility. Mom and dad won't be there to nag you about grades, but you'll be losing the comfort of knowing that they are just down the hall in case you need their help. You also won't have them standing by to help you get your act together when you're falling down on the job.

You may view the changes that are about to take place in your life as mostly awesome, but before you get too excited you'd probably better plant both feet back on the ground. It's time to give some serious consideration to how you will handle the transitions that are ahead. To help you do that, here are just five recommendations that will definitely head you down the right road toward college success.

1. Prioritize

Within just a few days of arriving on campus, you will be bombarded with offers to join everything from study groups to sororities and fraternities. Opportunities to make new friends will quickly lead to a social life like you've never experienced. With no one to ask permission of, the temptations to sample a little of everything will be huge- but don't.

One of the first things that you will want to do is to ask yourself why you have entered college. If the answer is to pursue studies in a career field that you have already identified, good for you! But if you, like many of your new friends, don't have a clue what you want to do with the rest of your life, you'll need to set some priorities. You'll have to make the decision to focus on the classes that you have already registered for, and determine to make studying your first priority.

The first two years of college are all about taking general classes anyway, so even if your future career plans are uncertain, you won't go wrong by making your education your first focus. There will still be time for socializing and even joining a club or two. The most important thing is that you don't blow off your academics. Somebody's paying for you to go to school, whether it's your parents or a scholarship. Chances are you have also entered the world of student loans. Paying back that money will seem much less painful if you get a good education first.

2. Use Your Alarm

Sounds basic doesn't it? Yet the first few weeks of college are the ones that students tend to mess up

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