which university

the list of 410 pin-yin syllables and HSK word-lists is all you need to begin with

When you are learning the tones, your teacher should show you hand movements that go along with the tones (e.g. an upward motion for the rising tone or a downward motion for the falling tone.) always practice the words using the motions. The Chinese "r" is pronounced with the tip of the tongue behind the bottom teeth. The differences between "zh, ch, sh" and "j, q, x" is that the first group are pronounced with the tongue tip pointing down and the second group with the tongue tip pointing up. I hope this helps.

Since you are going to study Chinese at a university or college, then your teacher and book will be your guide. Unless you are saying you want to get a headstart.

First of all, welcome to the chinese world! in my opinion, Chinese is very easy, but meanwhile very difficult. lol because we don't really have many fixed grammar rules. as for tips, i think it's always good to start with pronunciation, so i think you can work on pinyin or phonetic symbols(bopomofo) as your first task. and that was what i learned first when i was a kid.