Most Common Concerns in the First
Year of College
Parents can be more helpful to their students when they understand
what most concerns students about the transition from high school
to college. Some concerns are general, some more specific to “K.”
The major concerns that we hear from the students who enter Kalamazoo
College are summarized below. We encourage you to discuss them
with your son or daughter. There may be some strategies that you
can help your "apprentice adult" develop. Just talking
about them may ease some of the fears of your new college student.
Increased
academic pressure. Our entering students are used to getting
good grades and being at the top of their class in high school.
When they join our first-year class, they look around and see
only students who were in the top of their high school classes.
This is the most common source of academic pressure, but there
are more. Students begin to worry that they won’t make the grades
they need to enter graduate school or a career. They feel that
you, their parents, are sacrificing so much, and thus they need
to perform unusually well. They fear that they will not meet
the expectations that parents have for their academic performance.
Their own sense of self-esteem may be tied to academic performance.
Helping your son or daughter understand these fears and your
expectations will help to relieve this particular stress.
Higher performance expectations by college faculty.
Kalamazoo College faculty do have high expectations for our students.
Your family would not have selected this college if they didn’t.
However, students may not be prepared for some of the following:
- the increased amount of work to be completed within an 11-week
quarter
- the need to study an average of 10 hours a week for each
class
- the expectation that papers go through several drafts before
submission
- the shift from memorization of facts to synthesizing, analyzing,
and drawing conclusions, to using knowledge, not just giving
it back
- faculty use of the grade of "C" as an acceptable
passing grade
Lower grades than were common in high school.
In college, students not only must be attentive to their academic
work, they must manage their lives, organize their time, see to
their health, meet new friends, balance work and play, etc. Adding
these responsibilities to the higher academic expectations may
cause a student to drop about one letter grade in the first and
sometimes in the second quarter. However, we do find that after
students learn to manage their activities, their time, and their
health, they often move their grades back up to the level they
once expected...if those expectations were realistic!
Time management. As you can see, students must
manage much more of their lives without your help. Although they
receive support, there is no one here who directly helps them
like parents do. This is probably the number one problem of our
entering students. We provide them with some planning structures
to help address this problem, but students must work out their
own time management strategies.
Dealing with alcohol. Nationally, alcohol is
the reported drug of choice for college-age young people, who
frequently think that drinking is a privilege that comes with
going away to college. It is the time for experimentation, and,
though there are rules, the monitoring of the use of alcohol depends
on self-monitoring rather than policing. With the perception that
“everyone drinks in college,” it is very hard for non-drinkers
to feel comfortable about their abstinence. It is still an age
where one does not like to be different from one’s peers. Thus
those who arrive at the college with drinking patterns established
and those who arrive without drinking patterns must confront the
role of alcohol in their lives.
Confronting sex and sexuality. We could substitute
the word “sex” in the previous paragraph because the same conditions
apply. College life offers opportunities to engage in sexual activity,
and students of this age do not believe that unwanted pregnancies,
AIDS, and other sexually transmitted disease happen to them. If
experimentation with alcohol is added to this mix, we find students
doing things they really don’t want to do, not exercising control
of their own feelings and behaviors. Students worry about whether
someone will like them, whether they can say “no,” what others
will think if they “do” or if they “don’t.” This may also be the
first time students confront homosexuality and face conflicts
within their own value systems.
Accepting responsibility for self. Many students
are not used to communicating needs, setting boundaries, and resolving
problems by themselves. Parents may have done some of this for
them, and students have sometimes used “house rules” to avoid
making tough choices. This is one of the critical developmental
issues confronting 18-to 22-year-old people as they move through
the process of separation from family toward independence. During
this growth period, there are some rough times as students adjust
to roommates, manage their housing selection, negotiate their
own needs, encounter sexual experiences, manage their emotions,
follow college policies, etc.
Our role is to help students confront these fears and concerns
and to develop positive attitudes and behaviors in each area.
We welcome your help on these important issues.
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Orientation
Orientation at “K” features intensive faculty, staff, and student
mentor involvement. Students meet the year’s Summer Common Reading
author and participate in small group discussions of the book;
work together in First-Year Seminar/Advising Groups; explore academic
and co-curricular interests at information sessions and Student
Life Seminars; participate in community service projects; and
consider issues fundamental to a “K” education. More information
can be found at the First Year Experience
site.
LandSea
At Kalamazoo College, first year students have the opportunity
to take part in an unique wilderness orientation option known
as LandSea. LandSea is an 18-day Experiential Education program
during which 80 incoming students participate in an expedition
through Killarney Provincial Park, located in Ontario. During
the program, participants hike, canoe, sail an 110’ brigantine,
climb, and rappel. Participants are introduced to basic wilderness
skills including: rock climbing, canoeing, camp craft, and land
navigation. College staff and upper-class student leaders facilitate
the experience of the participants, offer support, teach skills,
and encourage participants to challenge themselves.
Students will return to campus in time to join the rest of their
class for orientation week. Information regarding LandSea will
be mailed to all incoming freshmen and can be found at www.kzoo.edu/landsea.
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