Abstract: Learning how to learn is considered not only as necessary part of the talent's qualities for lifelong learning, but also the essential guarantee for improving learning efficiency. Questionnaires were applied to study 1 344 undergraduate students at Beihang University, and initial conclusions can be summarized as follows: college students show good performance as a whole in out-of-class autonomous learning, especially in choosing learning strategies, but need to improve abilities in setting learning goals and plans; girls have better abilities in setting learning goals and plans than boys; different grades have significant differences in autonomous learning abilities and the 6 main factors of autonomous learning; sex, grade and subject have no significant interaction with each other. Therefore, cultivation and instruction on the goals-setting and metacognitive strategies should be strengthened in order to improve the autonomous learning abilities for college students and to promote the talent training quality.