I think you'll be just fine! It sounds like you are a pragmatic, hard-working individual who understands how to delay gratification. My practical advice would be to make sure you get internships over the summers (or research positions if you're looking to go for a PhD). Remember that looking for a job is basically the culmination of your work during school - if you have consistently worked hard, put in hours, gotten good grades, gotten to know your professors, polished your resume, etc, you will have an easier time finding a job. The biggest thing is having work experience, ideally something part-time during the school year (tutoring for $, or leadership positions in clubs, volunteering) plus internships over the summer. (To give some context, I graduated in 2011 and accepted a job offer in October of my senior year after months of intense application work that started as soon as the school year started, though of course all my work in college before that was the real base of the effort.)
Then just approach the job search with the same level of effort you have put into school - use all the resources at your disposal. I practically lived in the career services center - not really, but I did meet with them several times about my resume, to get advice for the job search, to do mock interviews, and then later to discuss my offers. At my school, there was a repository of all the job postings (through which employers would look over resumes and pick people to interview on campus). Use your internships to figure out what kind of job you want (or don't want - finding that out is important too), then apply to every job you would reasonably consider. So, don't apply if it's in a location you would never live in, but do apply even if it's not the perfect fit. You never know how the job will actual differ from the appearance in the description, you may surprise yourself by what job you end up wanting to take, plus getting practice applying and interviewing is useful.
Apply to everything, especially to the posting that are a little bit inconvenient and require cover letters - if that annoyance stops others from applying, better odds for you. Plus sending lots of applications makes it easier to apply to jobs in the future - you get better (and faster) at it, less intimidated by requests for cover letters, etc. You will then probably reap the rewards with many interviews. Just approach the whole process with the desire to learn as much as possible - understanding how to apply for jobs, what employers want, how to frame and articulate your activities and goals, how employers find employees, how to write a resume, how the whole system is set up - this is all interesting. You will be better off for knowing it. And every interview you get, every company you research in advance of said interview, every person who interviews you - that's an opportunity to learn something. Knowing more is a good thing, makes you a better and more interesting person.
My personal philosophy is that I always want to be surrounded by intelligent (and intellectual and interesting) people, and that I want to learn everything, and there is something to learn from most situations/people/books/experiences. And that is an attitude that lots of employers want, when coupled with hard work.
The remaining $5,500 ought to go toward paying your college expenses. Maybe not all at once for tuition if your scholarships cover that, but you should have some "skin in the game" regarding your college living expenses.
Totally disagree. The poster's parents are able and willing to pay for college - one doesn't need to have skin in the game (financially) to be a responsible student. I didn't pay a penny for college expenses and I worked very hard throughout - don't imagine my behavior would have changed if I had to pay for it. I would also recommend the Roth option - you have until April 15 to contribute for 2014 ($5,500) is the max. Bernstein's 'Preparing for prosperity, armageddon, and everything in between' is one of my favorite books on investing - it is very clear and big-picture. I would suggest reading that, other books, checking out blogs. If I were you, I would put in 1K/month starting this month, and ending with 1.5K in April. Invest it with Vanguard into a stock index fund or far-off target date fund. You can expand your asset allocation as you add more $ to your Roth - I have about 5 funds in my Roth, very happy with that.