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Transition between high school and college
Transition between high school and college
Transition from high school to university exprience
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Before even crossing the threshold of their new found campus, a college student is bombarded with situations to test their will. Entrance exams, interviews, putting together a portfolio, and before even that, taking one of the most important tests of one 's life in the SATs. This assault is designed to determine the compatibility of a prospective student to their given program. However, as a side-effect, it also weeds out some of those students who aren 't committed. The ones who make it through are determined to take their educational success into their own hands. Walker Percy supports this ideology in his essay “Loss of The Creature” by consistently referencing his concept of “sovereignty.” Percy uses numerous examples of sightseers missing out on experiences by hiring a guide or going on a tour to emphasize the importance of taking hold of experiences for yourself. The tourists ' experiences were diminished because they surrendered what sovereignty they had over the situation to someone else. You can 't be a “tourist” in college; you have to be proactive and make the most of it for yourself.
Students need to be well versed in researching and a style of independent learning not often found in a high school setting. Many students will initially be lost in the new academic foundation that they are unwittingly thrust into without much introduction. As they try to get a steady foothold, the work is already starting to pile up, making the metaphorical mountain-side steeper and steeper. This method of transitioning students into a college setting isn 't working. In fact, the majority of students take longer than the projected finish-date to complete their degree. “About 59 percent of students who began seeking a bachelor 's degree at a 4-year institution in fall 2007 completed that degree within 6 years” says
Congratulations on being admitted to State College! I am glad that you have made your decision to come here. State College has numerous great opportunities to offer its students. You also told me that you are enrolled in English Composition 101. One of the pieces of literature you will encounter in this class will be "The Loss of the Creature", by Walker Percy. For your preparation to the class I can summarize and give you my explanation of "The Loss of the Creature". Throughout the essay Percy tries to get across how any person with expectations or "packages" will not be able to fully accept and learn from any experience.
The main point to Caroline Bird’s article is that college has never been able to work its magic for everyone (15). I totally agree with this statement. Many of the high school graduates today are not mature enough to attend college immediately out of high school. Since they have been in school for thirteen years, students are thinking of some “me” time after graduation. They are not ready to settle down in a serious academic environment. My oldest daughter graduated from high school in the spring of 2009 then attended her first semester of college the following fall. She dropped out after her first semester because college was harder than she thought. She was working part-time in addition to going to school full time. There was always an outside distraction to keep her from her studies. Her grades were positive proof that students must be serious about college to gain something from attending to college.
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
In Walker Percy’s “The Loss of the Creature” he attempts to portray the idea that perspective can be skewed by another’s story, personal experience, and other factors that lead people to have these expectations of a sight or study that lessen the experience. He demonstrates this when he makes mention of the tourists at the Grand Canyon, and the Biology student getting compared to the Falkland Islander. The facts he presents are true, but Percy does not go into detail about individual cases leading to a generalized essay that does not show that each individual account is different, and not all expectations are changed from other information given to people will taint the learning environment or the experience, and because of this the points that are not mentioned as well as Percy’s thoughts will be explained and expanded on.
It is the American dream to get out of high school and to start working towards your degree, right? Perusing a degree in the United States is not as dream like for some students. Many factors such as the learning environment, where you come from, and the knowledge and will power can shape how the higher education experience can go. While not all of these factors necessarily point to a rough or tough college experience, but also show that we as a nation could help our students be more educated and prepared to pursue and finish a degree. All students should be given equal opportunity and tools to become a successful member of society.
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
It seems as though the majority of college students these days aren’t looking to further their education because it’s what they really want, they do it to please their parents, to be accepted by society, or because there’s nothing else for them to do (Bird, 372). These expectations have led to students being unhappy and stressed, and have pushed them into a school or a job that they don’t particularly care for.
Society puts too much pressure on high school students to attend a 4-year college right after graduation. Though this is an attainable goal for some, a great majority of students are not fully prepared for the demands of college. 4-year schools require an incredible amount of maturity and preparation, leaving very little room for mistakes. Schools often overlook this aspect because their main goal is to get as many students into 4-year college as possible. This is a great goal to have however they send students off to college who aren’t ready to be handle the difficult of their courses while being away from home. My senior year of high school, my family and I came to the conclusion that we were not going to be able to afford four-year college tuition. This upset me at first because I felt like all my hard work and good grades went to waste. I dreaded the thought of going to community college because my who...
“Many institutions have begun to use hard-sell, Madison-Avenue techniques to attract students. They sell college like soap, promoting features they think students want” (Bird 372). This is a strong statement to use because it seems like some kind of item of need in everyday life for young adults. Colleges have gotten to the point where they have become so much like a business that they feel the need to satisfy the customer on what they are selling so they include all sorts of programs and curricular activities that could please the new students. Not only does it seem as if they are being pressured into attending college by their high school counselors and parents but also by their own classmates as most of them are going so many don’t want to feel out of place and they attend anyways. Due to society make it seem as if college is a necessity people feel the need to attend but also as if it is just a way to “temporarily get them out of the way…” (Bird 374) Today even some sociologist believe that college has become an institution so people just accept it without question. That’s wrong because people make it seem as if you won’t get far in life if you don’t have or get a college degree. But that shouldn’t be the case because in the past many jobs were done by people
In 2012, the rate of graduation stays low as the rate of attendance goes up at community colleges. People say that they go to college to get a better education and to have more opportunities, but we all know in the long run it’s so they can make more money. In order to learn you must be willing to work hard, Confucius once said, “You cannot open a book without learning.” I believe that this is true because at some point you have to read something about what you are working on. In 2014 of 2.9 million high school students who graduated, 2.0 million of them went on to college to get a higher level of education. In addition to the promise of a higher salary, college offers a myriad of benefits to students who participate in the academia experience.
First of all, many high school graduates cannot handle college. Isabel V. Sawhill and Stephanie Owen describe college as a place, “one can obtain a traditional four-year bachelor’s degree”. The work load outside of the classroom could be compared to working a full time job. For example, if a student is enrolled in four college courses and is in class a minimum of four hours the student should spend at least four to six hours of studying. This may be extremely agitating and stressful to a student that is not good at studying. The new college student may realize that the schoolwork is too much for him to handle and instead drop out. In Pharinet’s blog post, Is College for Everyone? He states that “…it is estimated that in the U.S., approximately 50% of students who begin college never graduate. There exist students who are not yet ready for the academic and financial challenges of college. There exist students who do not have the desire for college or learning.” This statement is important because if 50% of students that begin college never gradua...
After my first few months of college, I realized I enjoy being a college student much more than I enjoyed being a high school student. However, the transition between the two extremely diverse worlds, was challenging at first, I found out how to overcome it. Originally, I couldn’t realize how different the two were, but as time went on, I was about to notice the differences. Not everyone is able to be aware of the many similarities and difference. Some differences include: cost, amount of freedom, and reasons why people are there. On the other hand, both high school and college have similar class structure and both require time management. The better prepared a student is to challenged with these many similarities and differences, the more
Determining college readiness is an essential part of determining who will qualify as a good candidate for admission into a college or university. The last thing that colleges want is for students to qualify for admission and drop out, this affects drop out rate and graduation rate. Robin Chait and Andrea Venezia (2009). to about 83 percent of high school graduates enroll in some form of postsecondary education, but only about 52 percent of students complete their degrees. Further, a very small proportion of students complete a degree in four years—“among students starting at ‘four-year’ institutions, only 34 percent finish a B.A. in four years, 64 percent within six years, and 69 percent within eight and a half years.”
While reading Percy’s story I was shocked because it was as if I were reading about my own experiences with reading and writing. As a child and teenager reading was an escape from the world and anxieties that surrounded me. Although, unlike Percy I read anything that I could get my hands on. I remember going to a book sale at the town library and buying books based on how old they looked because they didn’t have fancy picture covers. That was one of the earliest memories I have of falling in love with a story because of the simplicity of the authors words instead of the pop culture interest of the world. Just like Percy, I left class feeling like I have no idea what I am doing because I thought that all you could do was write genre based material.
There are many different kinds of obstacles college students face on the road to getting their degree. Sometimes these obstacles can be worked around, while other times these hurdles seem so large that students drop out. My life as a college student might harder than the typical student straight out of high school but, I’m determined to get my college degree.