As a student with 19 jumps, Ill put in my experience thus far..
When I was first starting out in AFF my deepest fears were of malfunctions and on my first 4 jumps I was paranoid of my canopy not opening properly. In fact, on my FJC I nearly cried between the time I threw the PC and the time it opened completely. Then on my 5th jump I had line twists all the way down to the risers. I always imagined myself in a panic but oddly enough I kept my cool and was able to untwist them (keeping an eye on altitude) in a safe amount of time. That pretty much got rid of most of my malfunction fears.
Now what I do is I look up videos of malfunctions so that I know what to look for and what a cutaway will look like from the jumpers POV. It helps a lot.
With each jump I get less nervous.... it just seems to get better and better. Poetry don't work on whores.