What I've learned so far about being a Master's student

It's coming up for the end of my first term, and the workload is finally feeling manageable. It's been an exceptionally rubbish couple of weeks academic-wise, preceded by an exceptionally rubbish couple of weeks personal-life-wise, preceded by 4 weeks of exceptional stress, what with moving down here and everything. And suddenly there's 9 weeks of a 10 week term gone!

The things I need to learn from for next term are:

1. History is something I can do. It uses all the same transferable skills as my undergrad degree and my old job, but in a different form. Primary source analysis, worldview of writer, motivation for writing, evidence and sources used by writer etc is basic stuff I can do with my eyes closed. Historiography (what has been written by other historians) is remarkably similar, but also includes which school of thought their work is based in. I need to make the distinction in my own head about which of my readings are primary and which are historiography, and section my notes accordingly.
2. This is my academic level. This is the point where for the first time (apart from my abortive attempt at a Further Maths A-Level) I cannot coast by doing the minimum. This means I have to work at it. The course on Ethnic Diversity was easier because it's using the familiar IR/social science methods, theories and examples from my BSc, albeit arranged in a newish way. The two History courses are within my reach, but I need to work harder at the background, because the discipline is unfamiliar, as are the subjects. The former I can't do anything about, and the latter was a deliberate choice, so I have to make that work for me.
3. I will not be comfortable speaking up in class unless I'm sure I know what I'm saying. I've been told I make excellent points when I do speak, but I should do so more often. This means I need a two-pronged attack: firstly, to be more comfortable agreeing with another viewpoint but for a subtly different reason - my contributions don't have to be unique; secondly, doing sufficient reading that I have a grasp of the issues in question AND the contextual background in which they reside; thirdly, paying more attention to the seminar questions when preparing, rather than just assuming that my brain will arrange the information into coherent argument on the fly. I can do that, and it's an important exam skill, but it's not the best way to approach an in-depth 2-hour seminar.
4. Stick to the timetable I've written, where this is a "job" from half-nine to half-five each weekday. There's more than enough hours in the week to do all the studying and a smattering of extra-curricula activities, but not if I get locked into the cycle of faffing in the day, studying til midnight then sleeping as late as possible to catch-up. I know this. I really do.
5. Get used to the fact that, unlike my undergrad, there are weekly non-negotiable deadlines. I don't have a year in which to fit a year's work: I have a week in which to fit this week's work, and another week next week in which to fit that week's work, and so on. I handled regular reports and meetings with ease in my job, so I need to apply the same techniques here - see above re: timetable.
6. I need to learn to cite properly. So I'll write a couple of paragraphs each week for each seminar with citations and ask the Professor to check that I'm citing appropriately. This will also force me to crystallise my thoughts ahead of time.
7. This is supposed to be fun. In order for it to be that, I need to have the confidence I can get the work done and not be stressing about it, which means, I need to do all the things listed here.

Finally, I guess, I need to come back to this list every week during Lent Term and make sure I am, in fact, learning the lessons rather than just observing them, filing them and ignoring them.