A fairly long post of general advice:
I recommend allocating the first semester to learning how to be a college student at your college. You need to adjust, and it’s easier if you aren’t panicking while you do it. Take a relatively light course load–max 15 hours of basic stuff. If you are taking more challenging classes (honors, placed into advanced classes, etc) take less of them. It’s better to ramp up to a reasonable workload than drop down to it. My first semester, I took 19 hours–6 of which were Honors History of Western Civ–and it nearly killed me. I held up under it, but when your first assignment in your 1st class is “Read the Iliad for tomorrow; you will discuss it in seminar”, it shakes you up. It also taught me to pace myself very quickly; next semester, I made time for a bit of a social life (also for sleeping, breathing, doing laundry, etc).
Find out where all of your classes are ahead of time. Literally walk through your schedule at least a couple of times, so you know where to go. Time yourself. This is mainly important on sprawling campuses; if you can’t make the walk between classes without undue exertion, try to reschedule one of them. Showing up late, sweaty, and out of breath isn’t going to help one bit.
Professors are often political creatures, especially in arts and humanities fields–it comes with the territory. If you have to write papers for a class, try to find out your professor’s political hangups. A few professors enjoy a well-reasoned disagreement; a few will fail you for it. Many will be annoyed to varying degrees and may or may not grade you impartially. You don’t have to pander to them if you disagree, just try to avoid their particular pet peeves.
Make friends. Preferably, make friends who share both academic major and extracurricular interests with you. Best of all are friends who actually share classes with you–this provides both you and your friends with backup if one of you just can’t face that 8:30 AM class after a binge (or have to miss it for other reasons, I suppose…:D). Even if you aren’t allowed to collaborate on assignments (and the prof is savvy enough to catch you) working alongside your friends allows you to commiserate and share resources. Don’t study alone unless you have to; everyone has their own perspective on pieces of the material–sharing them helps you understand and remember more of it. Also, brief “goofing off” breaks actually help the process.