I see many of the points have already been covered. I'll add an extra bit of advice for Historians.
Pick and choose which lectures you go to - don't bother going to all of them as many of the tutors will recommend. You will learn from speaking with older students which lecturers are excellent and which are poor (do not waste your research time with the latter). You will also find that going to a lecture on a topic you wrote an essay on the week before won't usually contribute anything to your understanding of the topic (lectures are meant to be general guidelines, rather than lessons as some may be used to from school). In first year, beware of some lecturers who may well say "I understand you are writing an essay on this topic soon, so let us forget the schedule and talk about something completely different!"
At least in first year, your essays will generally be awful and they WILL to be torn to pieces in every tutorial no matter how good or bad it is!