San Francisco State University Discourse Analysis

San Francisco State University (SF State) has a sixty four percent acceptance rate of a variety of applicants with a total of about 29,905 students, 43% male and 57% female. For a lot of those applicants it is their first time going to college, others may be transferring from elsewhere, or are going back after taking a break. Although it is true for some people, it is not true for everyone. There are major differences between community and state colleges, some being; the costs of classes, the amount of classes they take, the workload, transportation, social environment, more classes that are for certain majors, and so on. In his book, “Social Linguistics and Literacies”, Gee states that. “A Discourse is a sort of 'identity kit' which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular social role

that others will recognize.” Through two episodes of fieldwork and an interview, it is evident to see that students experience college differently and it helps them mature and become independent due to them trying to be apart of this new discourse.

The majority of students who attend SF State are more independent because they may live in dorms, have a job, have to financially support themselves, which affects their way of living by having to adapt to this new way of life. How do these students juggle all these responsibilities and still manage to graduate?
In the two episodes of fieldwork and interview conducted, I found that there was a lot of diversity; people from different backgrounds, ages, genders, hobbies, family lives and situations, and so on. Those who attend SF state usually have a clear vision of the career field that they want to or at least an idea. In order for them to go to college, they need to have a source of income whether it be from their parents if they are lucky or from their own job that they may have. If they have a job, it is both good and important for them to

experience how it is to be an adult which will help them later in life when they are done with school and have to live on their own. Most students who work tend to have entry level jobs that pay minimum wage which barely covers the cost of living in San Francisco and the expenses of college such as; books, classes, school supplies, etcetera. Furthermore, the person interviewed said, “my workload is fairly simple, my teachers assign only one homework assignment a week. The assignments are hard, but because I'm not assigned a lot it makes life a lot easier. It usually takes me at least an hour for each assignment.” Although it is difficult to balance both school and a job, it is much easier to do because it sounds like the professors are aware of and understand that their pupils have jobs, other classes, and an outside life so they try to give them small assignments that won’t be too time consuming but it will still cause them to critically think as well as test their knowledge and such. On the subject of homework assignments, in high school it was very easy to get away with copying homework and getting full credit, if you got caught the worst thing that could happen was getting detention. However, in college, you cannot depend on anyone else to do your homework but yourself, if you get caught you can face expulsion from the school itself. The atmosphere is much different, more professional because there is no messing around in college.