I already have a degree, but I am working full time and getting another degree full time as well.
You should already be very familiar with programming concepts, and should be getting stronger with C and then C++, or if not then some other oject orientated programming language like Java or C#.
You'll probably want some passing familiarity with other programming languages as well, but its important that you are VERY strong on one, which is more than likely going to be C++. If you don't know anything about C++, START LEARNING NOW! Don't just wait for some subject with it to come up, go to the library and get a book out and do it now. I don't care if you have other stuff to do as well - that's the whole point, to have a busy learning schedule.
Try to learn "all about computers", basically. Read books and web sites and magazines about them, in addition to your course reading. You'll find that a lot of these concepts overlap, and that things you learn from your own private learning will meet up with things that you are taught about in class.
You should, as an aside, be trying to specialise in something, such as networking, or databases, or whatever, and you should be focusing your programming onto this area. Thusly, as a database person, you learn all about SQL, etc. As a networking person, you learn about programming with winsock in C++, etc.
Since you are just starting, there's no way you could possibly know what this is, so just keep working hard, keep looking and KEEP AN OPEN MIND. Give everything a little try and see to what you gravitate towards. In the end, your interest level is the best criteria with which to pick your chosen speciality, as you are deciding now what you will likely be spending a lot of your future working days doing and thinking about. Don't be seduced by money, or whatever. Pick something that interests you deeply and at all costs keep up to date with it. Don't discount things lightly - sometimes the way you think something is (especially when you just assume that it will never interest you and don't bother looking) is not the way that that thing truly is. Keep an open mind.
Don't think about yourself as a student struggling to pass the course - rather, think of yourself as a programmer, albeit a fledgling one. In that respect, you are very much like myself right now, and from someone who is getting As in classes, please take this advice: WORK HARD. PAY ATTENTION. There's plenty of distractions at university - girls, drink, drugs, late nights. Don't let them take control of you, or you will join the legions of ex-students who washed out and never finished. It happens to lots of people. Believe me. I saw it first time round, and I see it this time round as well.
Also, look for answers yourself. Don't expect to be given them on a plate. If you go to see a lecturer about something, show that you have been doing some thinking or reading about the matter in hand off your own back first, rather than just turning up and expecting to be told all of the answers.
I am a full time student and also a network administrator at a university - and I see crap students all the time. I laugh at them, and so do the lecturers. Please try not to be one.
