College Life
Dear Freshman Friend:
Hello and welcome to college! You will spend the next four years of your life studying, sleeping, eating, exercising, making friends, making enemies, falling in love, being heart broken, plagiarizing, and suffering in this ancient institution called university. You probably learned from brochures, applications, and other similar college advertisements the number of volumes the library owns, the name of your future college professors, and even how many hectares the university covers. But nobody has ever talk to you about this: the reality of college students. These are secrets behind the walls, the subject that many admission officers had tried for decades to keep it as a secret until this moment…so here we go.
MONEY
You will be cheated by paying thousands of dollars in tuition, room, board, and all kinds of imaginable fees (like right now I am paying a $20 parking fee, and I don’t even own a car). Books are the second most expensive items in college life. Somewhere down the line, you will pay $100 for a book; and at the end of the semester, if you are lucky, you will get seven bucks for it. An easy solution is to sell the book to a prospect victim, I mean student, who is planning to take the same class (hint: for extra cash include class notes and tests). Colleges are a great please to get at least three credit cards and t-shirts (the best part!) each month. If there is no way you can get a fake ID with your worst enemy name on it, then reject the cards, especially if you don’t have a job. If temptation is too big, then print dad’s address on the credit card’s application so he can pick the bill every month, if he complains tell him is strictly for emergencies (it always wor...
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...d critique every single piece of paper they get their hands on. Believe it or not they have family, friends, hobbies and even a life outside school. No, they don’t live in their offices; they have a home just like you and me. Try to be respectful to them, remember they are God in their classroom. If you want to get extra points let your professor know that you are planning to go to graduate school to earn a Ph.D. in their concentration area just because you absolutely love his/her lectures (it can earn you at least an A-, guaranteed).
This way, dear friend, after four years of dealing with the same tedious and painful routine, the day will finally come when you’ll stand up in front of several hundred people to get your college diploma. Just to find out that you can’t get anywhere without a graduate degree. Take care and good luck.
Sincerely
A Friend
Chapter two begins with a more then competent college student named Eva, who describes her first semester English class as completely nerve wrecking, terrifying, and extremely intimidating. Hence the title “The Student Fear Factor.” "The Student Fear Factor,” gives an insight of student’s fears, doubts, stress, and anxieties they endure while attending college. For example, Melanie who is a recent High School graduate compare the difference between High School vrs. College. She also makes a valid point about how important it is to becoming responsible, independent, and serious when it comes to college. For the mere fact that college is no joking matter and nobody is going to care about your GPA besides you.
In a society where a collegiate degree is almost necessary to make a successful living, the idea that a student cares less about the education and more about the “college experience” can seem baffling. In My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, Rebekah Nathan, the author’s pseudonym, tackles the idea that academics are less impactful on a student then the culture of college life. Nathan, a 50-year-old cultural anthropologist and university professor, went undercover as a college freshman for a research project. From her research, she hoped to better understand the undergraduate experience by fully immersing herself in college life. To do this, she anonymously applied to “AnyU,” a fake acronym for a real university,
Throughout the length of schooling, students go through various changes. In their first year of school, children are required to make the transition from being at home for the entire day to being in school for a number of hours a day. These transition periods happen many times through the schooling years, but the most drastic changes occur during the transition from high school to college, where students weather numerous lifestyle changes. While each individual student goes on their own journey, certain themes remain common between different students. Studies are done to look at these themes identifying the numerous differences and similarities.
Colombo explains that “Beginning college can be disconcerting experience” (Colombo, p.1). That there will be more peer pressure from your peers and an increase expectations that you have never faced during your high school days. “In the dorms you may find yourself among people whose backgrounds make them seem foreign and unapproachable” (Colombo, p.1). Colombo also states “If you commute, you may be struggling against a feeling of isolation that you’ve never faced before” (Colombo, p. 1).
Students entering college for the first time become concerned with their college life. The students are on their own once they enter college. There are no parents or guardians telling them when to do homework, when to go to bed, or how to eat healthy. These students are now responsible for how they are going to succeed in school and meet their own needs. From the beginning, these students wonder what their experience is going to be like and are they going to handle the demands of college?
Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students: Volume 2, a third
Picture this. You are heading off to college to begin the next chapter of your life. It is a moment you have always been waiting for. You are past the high school drama, and are ready to start taking classes that will allow you to obtain a degree in something you have always been passionate about. It’s your first week on campus and you are invited to a party being hosted by a group of upper classman. You show up to the party and immediately are handed a red cup with what you know is something you shouldn’t be drinking. You take a sip anyway and soon start talking to that guy in the corner who at first seems friendly, but soon begins to take advantage of you. Just like that everything changes. This is a situation millions of people face every
Less than two-thirds of those who start college in America finish. The almost fifty percent that don’t finish college drop out for various reasons such as financial issues, family issues, maturity, lack of self-motivation and distractions. Some even feel as though college is scam, making us rack up debt to try and get a well-paying job just to pay off their accumulated debt.
When any adolescent enters High School they are still young and on the search to find themselves. High Schooler’s often make bad decisions, but quickly see that these mistakes there to be learning experiences rather than to dwell on them. Often, for many students, High School does not present an extreme amount of stress, rather it is a a place to learn more about yourself. Once college hits, stress is the only thing on the mind. College students are always worrying about if they did their homework, if they have a big test coming up, if they studied enough, and if they even have enough money to pay their bills. So the key to college is to know that the fundamentals of college are different than high school, be responsible and reliable to yourself, do all your homework, and most importantly be respectful to your peers and teachers
Students go to college in search of knowledge, a new lifestyle, and the hope of a job after graduation. For many young adults, college is a rite of passage into an independent, mature new lifestyle. Not only is higher education a rite of passage, for some, it is also an opportunity to have a better life. Overall, college is a wonderful part of many people’s lives, yet the way the college education system is conducted wastes students time and money. College is basically composed of two parts: general education classes and major specific classes. General education courses are the source of wasted time and money, and should not be required of students. A few of the problems associated with general education classes are that they are basically a repeat of high school, unfortunately they can be the demise of students, they are costly, and they waste time.
High school students are often surrounded by a plethora of stories about the “realities” of college academics. The students base their expectations of college on those stories; however, sometimes the information they receive is conflicting. From teachers to peers to the colleges themselves, each has different advice about the strenuous nature of college academics.
William Zinsser’s essay “College Pressures” emphasizes the struggles students have in trying to conquer the college milestone in life. Zinsser believes that college has lost the authenticity of the overall goal of gaining knowledge for one’s own interest, rather than the overall need of going. He sympathizes with struggles college kids go through and hopes to provide insight on the overall situation. One of his major points are that succeeding the first time is not always the best way in learning, and that sometimes students need to fail in order to properly learn. The author mentions the “Four pressures, economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure” and how there are “No villains; only victims” that fall
College for an incoming freshman is exciting, however, it is often focused on the social aspect such as the connections that can be attained through Greek life, parties and independence. Due to the social interactions, freshmen tend to drop out of college after their first year. Focusing on what college is meant for can prevent these situations. The pressures of college such as impressing parents, and maintain a high standard GPA-wise can lead to stress and freeze a student from achieving the proper academic performance. During the mid 1900s, college was considered more of a luxury than anything; people would attend college exclusively to acquire knowledge in hopes of obtaining a career after graduation. People in the twenty-first century, however, attend college to get away from home and enjoy freedom at parties. Education is taken lightly, and those who feel that education isn’t the main focus of college should not apply for sakes of the greater good.
College is something that many high school students anticipate; A new transition between two very similar yet diverse worlds. This transition can be something very exciting but also very nerve raking and difficult. Students, Ready to leave behind high school, being researching to find the most prestigious schools and programs available, soon forgetting to remember that although the two, high school and college have their similarities such as doing classwork, and homework the differences are endless.
A new experience, a change from the norm, looking out for myself, and living on my own: for me this is college. The transition of high school student to college seemed immensely overwhelming and even a bit scary. The shift opened a can of worms and created challenges, both good and bad, behind every corner. Due to the change of scene, I am now dealing with the everyday acceptance of the greater world around me: the town, the people and my new life.