How to put your book together and hopefully not fail out of advertising school

I'm just finishing up my first portfolio for school, it's due on Thursday. We've been told in our class that the first portfolio is always garbage, and when I look at mine I sort of feel that way.

I feel good about the fact that I can see that some of my ads aren't very good, but I'm troubled by the fact that I can't quite make them work. It hasn't quite clicked yet.

My semester's over on Friday. I might put up some of what ends up in my portfolio then.