Underachievement Among College Students By Megan Balduf

In “Underachievement Among College Students”, Megan Balduf asserts her point that college students perform under their full potential due to lack of preparation and study skills in secondary school, poor time management, and a lack of internal and external motivation. Seven freshman students at Queen Mary College were interviewed to identify the underlying causes of student underachievement and to hopefully propose possible solutions to this ever-growing problem.

One common theme among the surveyed underachieving college freshmen is a lack of preparation for the difficulty of coursework at Queen Mary College. Students report that the coursework they were given at their high schools was not challenging enough, which partly accounted for their poor performance in more rigorous college classes. They are unprepared for the difficulties they will have to face during their freshman year. One student credits his underachievement in college to missing lectures during secondary school. Earning high marks in high school with little effort allows some students to miss out on class lessons with no evident damage to their grades or performance.

The sample of college freshmen that were surveyed state that poor study skills play a large role in their academic performance---or lack thereof. Because school always came easy, there was no need for them to try to succeed. The students never learned to work for their grades during this critical time of learning, and their grades suffered because of it. In high school, they were able to do well by merely listening to lectures; studying outside of the classroom was unnecessary and quite frankly, a waste of