Cathy Small known as her pen name under Rebekah Nathan is a professor and a graduate coordinator of anthropology at Northern Arizona University. During a leave of absence from teaching, during the fall of 2002 at the age of 52 she enrolled as a student at Northern Arizona University, signing up for a standard first year range of courses. During that time for Nathan as a student life, she saw, observed and felt the social life between US students and international students which became her main target and purpose. Nathan’s main point argues about how “international students saw “individualism” and “independence” as a characteristic not only of a roommate interactions but in relations with family and friends as well” (Nathan 73). Which can be said in easier terms that US college life is a life where you have to live alone, stay alone and work alone, means doing everything independently. One of her topic and focus is on the Social life and making friends on US university campuses. From my point of view, I agree with Nathan’s claims and observation because many young adults imagine vivid pictures of what college might be like for them. However, once these young adults mature into independent men and women, and enter into the school of their choice, they soon realize the reality of the college lifestyle. Students must learn to adapt to their new surroundings as quickly as possible to accomplish the sought after degrees. Students come to the realization that life is not as easy as they might hope for. They understand the fact that they have worked hard from middle school to high school to enter in into their dream college and fulfil their dream job. Where some US students decide to isolate themselves from being in a social life and inte...
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... individualism and independence going around the campus as not only of a roommate interactions but in relations with family and friends as well. In easier terms that US college life is a life where you have to live alone, stay alone and work alone, means doing everything independently. Based on her observation, Stahl and my ethnographic, I agree with what Nathan claimed was true because they understand the fact that they have worked hard from middle school to high school to enter in into their dream college and fulfil their dream job. Where some US students decide to isolate themselves from being in a social life and interacting with international students or other things that they consider as a “distraction” because some ought to think that why make new friends when you already have some, why waste time on new people. US students mainly focus on them, them and them.
He feels that students who want to fit in finds a sense of haven in a college where there are limitless possibilities of being part of a group of “us” rather then them. “Throughout human history, most people have lived around some definable place – tribal ring, river junction, or Town Square. The reality is that modern suburbia is merely the latest iteration of the American dream, David Brooks” Before the construction of the first transcontinental railroad so called the pacific railroad many people lived within the resources of the town square, on the contrary people seek to find something new for them self as a means of traveling to the outer most terrains to express freedom to freely go as they please. In addition the similarities between a sense of us and the freedom of individuals who feel the need to go beyond the borders of their comfort zone is expressed through their decision to face uncertainty weather the choices they made is beneficial or
In Paul Toughmay’s “Who Gets to Graduate,” he follows a young first year college student, Vanessa Brewer, explaining her doubts, fears, and emotions while starting her college journey. As a student, at the University of Texas Brewer feels small and as if she doesn’t belong. Seeking advice from her family she calls her mom but after their conversation Brewer feels even more discouraged. Similar to Brewer I have had extreme emotions, doubts, and fears my freshman year in college.
...d the way in which she makes friends, also suffered. So what can other first generation college students do to avoid what has happened to Sarah? The answer lies in directing a passion towards learning and education in students and their families that will build self-motivation and avoid the negative predispositions of being the first in the family to attend college. While Sarah has not been attending the University of Miami for too long, her experiences thus far have given her a very good understanding of her position in this academic community, and nevertheless, gives a representation of first year first generation college students. Sarah is only one person though and may not be fully representative of the population first generation college students, but as a member of this community, Sarah’s input is essential to the ideas and views of the students in this group.
How imperative is it that one pursues a traditional college experience? Although it might appear that Charles Murray and Liz Addison are in agreement that the traditional college experience is not necessary for everyone, Addison provides a more convincing argument that higher education is necessary in some form. This is seen through Addison’s arguments that college is essential to growing up, that education is proportional to the life one lives, and that community college reinvents the traditional college experience. Not only does Addison have her own opinions about college, but Murray does as well.
Pages 94 - 108 discuss the floor and how the girls interacted with one another upon move in day and throughout the semester. The section begins with a description of Alana who felt a lack of connection with the girls on her floor. The other girls on her floor had only hung out with her once, and they used her as a designated driver causing Alana to not want to return to MU her sophomore year. By the end of the year, half the floor were defined as isolates including Alana because they can only claim one other friend (other than roommate) on the floor. Eighteen of these twenty five women were from less privileged families. They are “less likely to have the funds, time, social tastes, and knowledge necessary to successfully engage in college social life” causing them to have trouble fitting in (Armstrong/Hamilton, 96).
In Jennie Capo Crucet 's essay, “Taking My Parents To College,” Crucet describes her own experience as a freshman college student who was faced with many challenges that were unknown to her, as well as the cluelessness of what the beginning of her freshman year would look like. I felt like the biggest impression Crucet left on me while I was reading her essay, was the fact that I can relate to her idea of the unknown of college life. Throughout her essay, she described her personal experiences, and the factors one might face as a freshman college student which involved the unknown and/or uncertainty of what this new chapter would bring starting freshman year of college. Crucet’s essay relates to what most of us
All students will face the terror of entering college, a place that will rip you away from the familiarity you had before. It is a place with an atmosphere so different from what you’re used to that you’ll feel it before you walk on that campus. But don’t run away just yet, there’ve been other’s who’ve felt troubled with doubt and fear about their abilities to succeed as a student in college. In the article “Conquering the Freshman Fear of Failure” author David L. Kirp implores that “students can acquire ways of thinking that helps them thrive” (1). In comparison, to Kirp’s article, the protagonist in “Make Your Home among Strangers” by Jennine Capo Crucet, also manages to overcome her doubt on her ability to succeed as a student. Students need to learn to face their fears in order to have the desired life that is filled with happiness and prosperity. First generation students constantly struggle with
In Jennine Crucet’s story, “Taking My Parents to College” she really explains to the reader how challenging it was leaving home and starting a new chapter in her life. When the author and her family first arrived to Cornell University, they were sitting there when the dean ended his speech with: “Now, parents, please: Go!” Being a first generation college student Crucet nor her family had any idea that they were not supposed to stay for orientation and had to leave her as soon as they got her settled in. They did not even have all the right materials and supplies that she needed to begin with by stating, “Every afternoon that week, we had to go back to the only department store we could find, the now-defunct Ames, for some stupid thing we hadn’t known was a necessity, something not in our budget: shower shoes, extra-long twin sheets, mesh laundry bags.” Both Crucet and I suffered from similar issues during our first few weeks on our new journey in college and we both had no idea what was ahead of us.
In their book Paying for the Party, Armstrong and Hamilton discuss how universities take class differences and class projects of distinct women to define what will be their college experience. In their book, Armstrong and Hamilton define class projects as individual and class characteristics that defines a person’s agenda and class- based orientation. Hence, people with similar class projects, not only shared the same financial and cultural resources, but also the same expectations toward school. (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013). As a result, Armstrong and Hamilton claims that students with similar class projects end up becoming a collective constituency and a representative group for the university, whom in turn must take their interests to form a college pathway for them. Therefore, a college pathway for Armstrong and Hamilton refers to how universities are able to take successfully the interests, class characteristics and expectations of students to mold within the organizational and architecture context of the school. In a way, each college pathway is built not only to represent, but also to provision and guide the different types of students in a college.
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,
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).
Colleges try their best to form a sense of community, but the reality is that everyone has their individual path and schedules, and one must really put in effort to have similar paths and schedules as their peers. For example, Nathan writes that everyone has different classes, meal plans, as well as extracurricular activities, which makes it hard to form a sense of community. In addition to a lack of community, Nathan also notices the lack of diversity. Again, colleges try their best to have very diverse communities, but the reality is that the majority of students are Caucasian. The lack of community and diversity shocked Nathan, because colleges make it seem like the
Rebekah Nathan starts her undercover anthropological study with the a couple of research questions: “What is the current culture at AnyU (my pseudonym for my university) as an example of the American public university? How do contemporary American students understand their education, and what do they want from it? How do they negotiate college life? What
Attending the brick-and-mortar traditional university, my traditional learning environment fostered any and everything but a setting for the mature. I had just completed a hitch with the military, and I was unstable already from such, and college campus life was no encouragement to change at the time. Knowles as to his six assumptions stating “[a]s a person matures, his or her self-concept moves from that of a dependent personality toward one of a self-directing human being (Mirriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner 2007, p...
What if everyone sat alone for lunch, each company did not interact with other businesses, and everyone lived a life of solitude? During college, learning to interact with others plays a large role in shaping the individual. College life provides many opportunities for a student to become involved with others. This socialization can result in a person gaining many benefits, including preparation for the work world. Social development helps a student to meet new people as well as making a person aware of the diversity on a college campus like Saint Peter’s. Human traits have evolved because of the influence that our surroundings exert upon us. The manner in which a person socializes in his or her environment determines how a person develops. In the college environment, the process of socialization turns students into adults.