Really agree with this. There's two things you should know which you might not figure out till you're out in the workforce.

- This first is that, despite all the news about the economy blowing up and unemployment on the rails, your industry is still aggressively looking for smart people to hire. I get emails almost weekly from companies looking for people to interview. It's a hard feeling to digest sometimes (I'm in my mid twenties), but you won't be left out to dry with your skills even if you go do a startup, burn all your cash, and fail miserably.

- Understand working capital for what it is. Your age counts for a lot; lots of young people will never realize that youth is working capital that should be spent while they still have it.

I guess the last thing you want to be weary about is burnout, and understand what it is. People love to throw the word around, but they never quite put it into terms, so here it is -

What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work. It was relatively easy to drag myself to classes when I thought I was working for my own betterment. It was hard to sit at a laptop and crank out slides when all I seemed to be accomplishing was the transfer of wealth from my client to my company.

written by a former consultant of a large firm - http://tech.mit.edu/V130/N18/dubai.html