Awesome, term 1 is cool, it was a chance for me to be serious on art and realize a lot of things I needed to ever improve. As a fellow student and I'm still a noob, I can tell you a few things that have helped me along the way that may help you
I think in term 1 a few of the biggest realizations I got were: what are the fundamentals? (I read Art Fundamentals by 3DTotal publishing to help with that theoretical aspect), how knowledge is a key but the practice is what ultimately leads to actual improvement. And learning art is chaos. You really need to be good at various fundamentals to make good art, and when you start out, you improve a few of them at the same time, so it's kinda messy until it gets ok if that makes sense.
Anyhow, try taking each assignment/exercise as an opportunity to work on your set fundamental and also as a chance yo improve your lines - paying attention to line weight and working on that hand eye coordination.
A few things that help me with that is to 1. SLOW DOWN, I used to go too fast, and a lot of time, we tend to use our hands and not our brains, making good lines is an exercise of restraint, calculation and flow. You really need to let your brain guide the hand and not the other way around, make every mark count and try ghosting a line or curve a few times before making it. That also doesn't mean you have to be perfect or anything.
Use the entire canvas, draw big.
Use your shoulder. if on a tablet, prop it up be it with the stand it comes with or with a third party solution (or even homebrew). I use a parblo stand when using the screenless tablet.
Experiment with brushes, it's a personal thing, but I feel it definitely has a psychological effect on me while making my art XD
cheers and good luck mate!
