Any advice for a shy girl?

Hello. I'm an 18 year old girl who will be starting college classes early, in two weeks. While I am excited to be starting a new chapter in my life, I am also nervous. I am very shy around new people especially guys, however I do want to improve on this in college. I guess maybe i should mention that I was bullied as a younger girl for years until my freshmen year of high school, which has caused me to be nervous to go places in public by myself or even with other people. Especially if I know there will be a lot of black people around, even though I am black myself, so i know that's awful but..the majority of people that teased me were black kids so.. I also have very low self esteem. I'm told by family and family friends that I'm a pretty girl but they're family ya know? Aren't they supposed to say that lol I'm afraid that I won't be attractive enough or have enough personality to get married and have a family one day, which is very important to me. I'm just very nervous about my future, though I want nothing more than to be a successful nurse practitioner one day. I know this will take some changing and work done on my part, but I wondered if anyone had some advice for me as well on how to go about making these changes?