Words to the Wise Concerning
Smart Lab Practices, Panic Reduction, and Problem Solving

1) Remember the First Law of GIS - Nothing Ever Works The First Time!
This does not mean you should give up and quit now.  What it means is be patient, go slow, save your work, and consider the time you're spending to be an investment on future skills.  In my experience, we learn new GIS skills more effectively and are more confident, competent, and creative in the future when we struggle through some implementation problems at the outset.

2) Lab Practices Advice
Save Early, Save Often - You'll be saving your work to an assigned folder on the lab server.  For complex analyses, create a "project" in ArcGIS right away and then save it frequently. This way, you're not up the proverbial creek if your lab partner kicks the cord to the computer, and if you  make a big mistake, you can quit without saving and re-open the whole thing to where you were before you made the mistake.

Be Careful Overwriting Files - While you're learning, it's normal to make lots of mistakes. You may find it useful to create new filenames as you go, so that you can revert to an earlier version with a different name, if you find you've gone down the wrong analysis path.

Pay Attention to Pathnames - In Catalog, Toolbox, or ArcGIS, pay attention to where you are saving files. Depending on what folder/pathname you have specified, they might be ending up in a temp folder or someplace else, so keep track of it, so you're not looking for that one lost shapefile to complete your map.

Make Lists - When I am using GIS, I frequently keep a notepad beside me, and maintain a running list of every action I've taken, and new files created (with their name and ordinary language description of what they are). I'd suggest you do the same - you're going to be deploying so many new skills at once that it is hard to keep it all in your head as you go.  Also - this list is your quick guide to diagnosing and fixing errors along the way. [And, it keeps your professor happy because it makes it easier for me to help you!  If I walk up to your computer and you say "What did I do wrong?", I can only help you if I know what you did to get to that point!

Communicate with Group Members - if you work in the lab by yourself on a portion of a shared project, make sure that everyone else knows what you did and where you saved it!

Start Early - In my experience, one of the tough things about GIS applications is estimating how much time it will take to finish. It's different than writing a paper - you can usually just write faster if you get in a jam.  With GIS work, if you hit a snag, there's usually no quick way to figure out how to solve the problem - you just have to keep looking for the solution until you find it.  So, to that end, start early. It's much better than having a big panic because you're not finished or having to take up residence in the lab the day before it's due....

3) Elwood's Conventions for Lab Instructions
Drop-down menus instructions: When I am giving you a series of instructions for how to navigate down through the dropdown menu choices on the top of your screen, they will look like this:

Menu Item à SubItemà SubItemà(any special instructions for choices in that dialogue box that will appear when you make these choices).

So the instructions for zooming your view to full extent (which  you all know how to do already), would look like this:

FileàZoom DataàFull Extent