Transition To University Case Study

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Students who do not adjust well to university may struggle academically and are less likely to engage in university life (Gibney, Moore, Murphy & O’Sullivan, 2010). This essay is about the factors that contribute to a successful transition to university. This is when a student is able to meet academic requirements and are committed to completing their course. They also engage in university life beyond academics. They are not overwhelmed but instead are healthy and able to manage the challenges that university presents (Chemers, Hu & Garcia, 2001). The factors that will be focused on are self-esteem, stress, background and social support. Social support is the factor that universities should focus on. Reasons for this will be explained and ways …show more content…

Students have many concerns when entering university including making new friends, meeting academic requirements and financial concerns (Gibney, Moore, Murphy & O’Sullivan, 2010). These can all be a source of stress and to adjust to university successfully, the student must learn to manage stressors. If they cannot do this they are more likely to experience psychological distress and have a low academic performance. Students who experience more stress tend to have worse health. Therefore, the ability to handle stress is important. As mentioned above, self-esteem increases the ability to manage stress as the belief in your ability to overcome the stressor is increased. Social support also enables students to manage stress better (Friedlander, Reid, Shupak & Cribbie, 2007). Some students may experience more stress than other students because they experience more challenges at university because of their background and previous …show more content…

This can be seen in the way it links to all aspects of a successful adjustment. Self-esteem is important and social support promotes it. Social support is also directly linked to more components of a successful adjustment than self-esteem. The ability to handle stress is important and social support contributes to a student being able to handle stress. The way social support encourages and strengthens other factors shows that it is a crucial factor in promoting a successful adjustment to university (Friedlander, Reid, Shupak & Cribbie, 2007). Universities must ensure that the social support they are promoting is applicable to people from different cultures and is inclusive of everyone. It may be useful for a student to have a peer-mentor who is from a similar background to them as they will probably experience similar challenges and can teach their mentee how to manage those challenges. Engaging in university life provides an opportunity for a student’s social network to be filled with people who can empathise properly with the student because they are facing similar challenges (Robbins, 2009). Students will usually have less contact with their previous social support when they move to university and need a new network of people who they can rely on for support within the university (Friedlander, Reid, Shupak & Cribbie, 2007). A university can, therefore,

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