College year freshman, sickness?

So for some reason all the freshman at my college are getting sick! I've kind of been dodging it, taking vitamins and sleeping. Is this kinda sickness thing common though? Any tips on avoiding it?
Ugh, and on another note how do you people survive writing papers? If I have to write one more paper on the Puritans I'm going to scream!

Everyone got sick during my freshman year - if you live in the dorm, it's basically a petri dish for germs. You're doing the right thing by taking vitamins and sleeping but it's pretty much hopeless if you live with people that are sick. It should die down anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, depending if there's still people moving in. Eat lots of garlic too.

If you're like me and have the write scientific papers, you have a pretty set outline of what you're going to write about and flesh out pretty easily - assuming you have the understanding to support it. It's a little more complicated with humanities (you're studying the Puritans - US History Major?) since there are many different opinions and approaches to take on each subject, but it can still be approached in the same ways. A few things I like to do:

- Limit the amount of time you put into it per day/session. I like to spend a few hours on my initial draft and then spend 1-hour intervals revising at once. This obviously depends on the length, but I find that spending more time than this makes you work less efficently, which is especially essential if you have a busy schedule. Remember to schedule breaks: I find that exercise (and I think it has actually been proven) speeds up your thought process from being idol for more than half an hour. Running is great for this.

- Don't be afraid to be pushy about what your teacher wants from you (as long as you aren't being rude, of course). I think a lot of anxiety people have about papers comes from being insecure about what they're writing, and a lot of this can be eliminated if you understand the prompt well. This also goes for formatting: is your professor strictly following MLA and expecting double-spaced papers? Most history classes don't, but it's still important to check.

I hope college is going well for you, Chi! Those are just some tips I've learned over the years - I hope they're of some help. When in doubt, remember the 5-paragraph structure and outline your ideas and points. Also, it's 1 in the morning so I might edit this later if it looks stupid.

Even if you don't live in the dorms, you will get sick. Those lecture theatres... so glad we had a medical centre with free* GP visits on campus. Try not to get yourself too stressed out over things, it can give your immune system a bit of a battering and just push you over the edge. Many of my classmates were pretty under-the-weather this winter due to the usual winter ills, stuff due to our pretty bad beginning to the university year which led to greater stress for a lot of folk.

Doing assignments in bits and pieces is a good, I've found that it's best to spend around 3 hours to every 5% the assignment is worth for the writing out part (research=extra time). Not sure about how things are done in the USA but it's worked out quite well for me most of the time.

*subsidised by university fees