Nowadays, it seems, the college life consists mainly of beer, parties, and sex and less about the idea of gaining an education to better oneself academically. Professors often wonder what students are thinking when it comes to their class and why they act the way they do towards things such as taking notes and study for exams. A female anthropologist professor at an unknown university (AnyU) realized that she could no long understand the habits of the students she was teaching. She believed that the best way to figure out these misunderstandings would be for her to get to know students in an informal and personal way, one that she could not do as a professor. After weighing all the possibilities and ethical situations, she decided to enroll at her own university as a freshman.
Rebekah Nathan’s study ranges from her first days on campus as a freshman just moving into the dorms, all they through to the end of the school year. She begins talking about life within the student dorms. As she described the dorms, readers who have experienced life on a college campus can begin to gain a picture of their own memories. It is commons for two people to share a room, she notes that residents of the dorm share a kitchen and bathroom and that there is usually a line for the bathroom early in the morning as everyone tries to get ready for class.(Nathan 2005, 20-21). This idea alone can be a great indicator of why students decided to dress down so much for college classes. She also describes that students in her dorm, on average, were in bed by 11:30 pm, but she noted that bed times could range to as late as two in the morning.(Nathan 2005, 35). It is because of these two ideas that student’s hygiene and appearance could lack at times in during c...
... middle of paper ...
...o break away from relaying solely on their parents. Many students have to perform some sort of work through college to make money to put towards food or bills. College forces kids to depend on themselves. It makes figure out just who they are and what they can handle, and it allows them to think for themselves. Nathan ends her college story with an excellent quote from a senior; “I think I was pampered the first two years with thinking it was great that I am living on my own and taking on some responsibilities and experiencing, you know the “fun” of college life…The problem I have now is, people are frustrating to me because they don’t take school seriously enough,”(Nathan, 2005, 130). While in college, its acceptable to make mistakes every once in a while because in the end, college is about education and not all lessons learned during college come from a textbook.
During her freshman year at Northeastern University, 19-year-old Jennifer Grant* thought college was just about doing minimal homework, going to parties, and meeting new people. She looked forward to every weekend when she was invited to parties with upperclassmen. Sadly, her world fell apart when she was raped by another student who was an acquaintance. Scared and confused from the experience, she turned to her friends for help.
Glenn Altschuler addresses the difficulties and conundrums associated with entering college in his article “Adapting to College Life in an Era of Heightened Stress” He presents the experience of Kate Wilkinson and her feeling of unpreparedness for college. Glenn brings together statistical evidence to show how students are more stressed today than any time in the past. Glenn presents many solutions to decrease stress and uses Henry David Thoreau’s short story “Walden” as a basis of how stressed students should come back to a state of relaxation by meditating on what really matters in life.
Sander, Libby. "The Chronicle of Higher Education: Students Try to Break Taboo Around Social Class on Campus." BATTEN CONNECTION. ( ): n. page. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. .
Understandably, most young adults aren't ready for the college lifestyle. They're unprepared for the longer hours spent on school work, the looming financial costs, and the freedom that has suddenly been thrust upon them. There is no need to point at anyone for blame but rather let’s just get you onto the right track!
Ultimately, what is at stake here is the fact that parents are making excuses for students who do not want to work hard in school or are not able to handle it, therefore, parents need to stop making excuses for adults and let them decide their paths in life. If parents stop excusing their kids, then teachers can continue the challenging work for student resilience to increase. College is a privilege, not every child in the world can experience and no one said it would be easy, but no one said it was acceptable to hold each student’s hand for the ride
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.
As the economy evolves and the job market continues to get more competitive, it’s becoming harder to have a successful career without some kind of college degree. This creates a belief in many young students that college actually is a commodity, something they must have in order to have a good life. There’s many different factors that influence this mindset, high schools must push the importance of the student’s willingness and drive to further their education. College isn’t just a gateway to jobs, but it is an opportunity to increase knowledge and stretch and challenge the student which in return makes them a more rounded adult and provides them with skills they might lack prior to
Since I grew up in a household with two parents who are college graduates, and even two grandparents who had graduated from college, the idea of attending college was never seen as a unique opportunity, but rather as a necessary part of my future. I’m not going to complain about growing up with parents who valued the pursuit of knowledge, but it certainly never exposed me to the mindset that maybe college is not the best option for everyone after high school. Today, there is a huge debate over if the price of college is really worth it in the end, with the high cost of tuition and the number of people who just aren’t prepared for the demands that college has to offer. And on the other side, some say that college is a necessity not just in one’s
Although leaving home for college is a big step toward autonomy, college students are still in the “betwixt and between” of teen agers where they are more “preparing for work” than filling the adult career slot. Students work part-time jobs, get money from their parents as well as loans and/or scholarships but are not self-sufficient and are often poor like the characters in the Opera La Boheme who do art, poetry and philosophy but can hardly pay the
Many kids beginning the college - decision process may be feeling lost at first, and ”By telling all young people that they should go to college no matter what, we are actually doing some of them a disservice. ”(Owen and Sawhill 209) For a seventeen/eighteen year old, going to college is arguably the biggest decision that they have had to make in their life thus far, and having the facts that Owen and Sawhill produce can be invaluable to the decision-making process. It is clear that the purpose of their essay is to better inform these young adults and guide them on their journey that is life after high school. The primary claim that Owen and Sawhill attempt to drive in using rhetorical appeals is that on average, having a college degree will lead to a higher income than not having one; however, it is not universally
"The more we know the world around us, the more successful we will be." This quote, from the introduction of my high school chemistry book, was my driving force as a teenager to attend college. My expectations of college were to gain insight into a world that I had not yet discovered. I had high aspirations of receiving a good education and obtaining a good job when I graduated. But four years later when graduation day arrived, I felt unfulfilled. In evaluating my education, I realized that I learned how to get good, but not great grades. I learned how to study to make the most of my time. The focus I shared with many of my peers was not always to appreciate the information received, but rather, to value the counsel from someone else who previously took that professor's class and maybe to be lucky enough to get a hold of last semester's examinations. Basically, I acquired useful skills for any job: to follow directions, to give the boss what he or she was asking of me, and to network and gain insight from other colleagues. It was still disturbing to me that after four years of schooling, I felt I had not received the education I initially expected. Overall, college does not bring out the full academic potential of the students who invest the time and money into an education. Teachers need to set aside their biases and restructure and develop curriculum, as well as student-teacher relationships, in order to truly develop college students into freethinking, exploratory people.
The hardest aspect of growing up and becoming an adult is claiming responsibility over oneself. For most individuals this level of maturity occurs when they leave high school and begin college. The author’s experience with personal responsibility began when he left high school; it wasn’t the big change that most college students received like being independent and paying for their own tuition, or living in dorms far away from parental guidance. Instead he was a college student whose parents provided him with everything he needed, from food to paying for tuition. To most his situation seems carefree and not all that independent because his parents were responsible over his expenditures. However the author’s focus on responsibility specifies
As a freshman at the University of Arizona, I at first found myself awed by the power of college: The flocks of people-students and professors alike-mingling on the mall, in the buildings, and in the Student Union. And in the early weeks of my first semester, I quickly found my favorite place on campus: the arcade. Billiards, table tennis, video games, and music. All the trademarks of a college student’s recreation area. It was in these first few weeks that my impression was made about the university. When friends or relatives would ask me questions such as “How’s college?” or “What’s school like?” I would tell them what I really thought. I would say, “It’s like high school, but with a lot more people, a bigger campus, and a lot of time in between your classes.” And that is the plain truth. My class work did not offer much of a challenge-it was more or less the same stuff I’d been seeing for years. The professors weren’t that big of a deal-they were much like high school teachers, but you got to call them by their first name. And the number one best thing about going to college? I didn’t always have to go! That’s right: attendance in some of my classes wasn’t even mandatory.
With the load of homework and complex material students are learning; close minded parents are having a hard time connecting with their children. This just goes on to prove Gregg Andrew correct when he states, “Every bit of learning takes you further from your parents” (Lubrano 581). It is a shock that college will corrupt families, since it is seen as the tool to be a successful family person. When in reality it will make a person successful, but as far the family goes it will have to be post aside. However, the fault in this is not the college’s hand, but of those closed minded parents who cannot see past what they believe in.
"The Freshmen fifteen" is one of the most dreaded rights of passage into college. It is a well-known fact among college students, that one gains fifte...