Designate a place at home as your study space where you can leave your books and papers spread out so they won't be touched.
Get into a study routine and try to stick to it. Start off gently with a couple of hours a day for reading and going over lecture notes.
If you don't understand something, forget your pride and ask. If you haven't grasped something, chances are other people haven't either but they're not willing to admit it.
Get to know your personal tutor. They can be an excellent source of support and advice.
Set up a study group where people divide work between them and prepare notes which can be shared.
Invest time in getting to know your way around the library.
If your college offers a study skills course do it.
If you can't type try to learn, as being able to wordprocess your own essays is much easier than writing long-hand and finding someone to type them up for you.
If you're the sociable type join the mature student society.
Don't be afraid of interacting with younger students in your class. They are far less judgmental than you think and they are not thinking that you're old enough to be their mother-father-grandparent.
Accept that your social/family life is going to be curtailed while you're studying and don't try to be superwoman/man.
Don't feel you have to cover every aspect of your course in detail. It certainly helps to have an overview but it should be possible to concentrate on areas which you particularly enjoy for your exams/assignments.
Get a set of exam papers before Christmas and see what's expected of you. That leaves plenty of time to get prepared and to ask your tutor questions about the paper.
When preparing an essay/ assignment try to leave a few days between finishing it and handing it in. This gives you time to tidy up details such as punctuation and grammar and the opportunity to express a point better when you've had time out to think about it.
If you've been away from studying for some time think of your initial essays as a learning process which lets you see what's expected of you. Don't be too disheartened if the grade is not as high as you might like.
