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My son came home from college this week, and consequently we've had a lot of his friends around. Tonight over dinner a group of them were talking about their first semester (freshmen) GPA's. I was horrified! These kids are all products of a terrific school system, and did reasonably well in high school. Two of them have gpa's below a 2.0, and another 5 failed to complete the semester at all.
My son did great in comparison, and I'm wondering why. We would not let him pledge a fraternity, and his buddy who did ended up with a .85 average. We also attended the final orientation, and many classes were full. Instead of morning classes, my son had to take classes 4 nights a week, which made it impossible for him to get involved in some clubs he was interested in. Basically, he didn't do much besides attend class, do homework, and sleep. Is that what it takes to be successful?
I guess I'm just wondering what the secret is. All work and no play? Better preparation in high school for handling the independence of college? Or, as we did, telling the kid if he doesn't do well away he can come home and go to community college?
The first term away is a huge adjustment. Some kids really flop without their high school teachers and parents checking up on them. Others are so excited for the social elements of college that they test the limits of how little they can do/how disorganized they can be the first term. Still other students don't know how to deal with the psychological stress of being away from home and managing a larger workload. In my experience not all such students are sobbing wrecks; a lot of them are guys who seem happy and may not even be able to put a finger on why they can't settle in at school.
I guess I'm just wondering what the secret is. All work and no play? Better preparation in high school for handling the independence of college? Or, as we did, telling the kid if he doesn't do well away he can come home and go to community college?
When I was a graduate student, I ran a resident hall for 600 students. The first semester and first year of college is a stressful year. Many do not make it past the first year. The reasons why in my opinion:
1) So much of what passes in this country for a high school education is really mediocre. A lot of freshmen are ill prepared in that they lack even basic writing and math skills. Some of the writing samples that I would review would not get acceptable for a 7th grader. If you cannot write, you will not last for too long. If you cannot handle the math, you will not last in engineering or accounting courses.
2) A lot of students lack the maturity to manage their time. Unless you live at home, in college, there is no one to wake you up in the morning for the 8:00 am lab course or to make sure that you are studying. Also, no professor is going to hold your hand to make sure that you keep up with the assigned work. They expect you to be an adult about it.
3) A lot of students do not have good study skills. That is, they do not really understand what it takes to keep up with a college course.
4) Alcohol and partying torpedoes a lot of college careers. Personally, I grew up in an era where alcohol was readily available as a freshman in HIGH SCHOOL. Our parents taught us how to drink responsibly and that "getting drunk" was not acceptable. When I got to college, you would see all the kids so excited that they could get drunk. WOW!
5) A lot of kids are really depressed (and terrified) to be on their own. I know that we dealt with a few kids each year who were homesick and not doing well on their own. Often, they are kids who have a hard time making friends. We tried to get them into a counseling service. Often moving back closer to home was the solution.
Generally, if your child is not successful in the first two semesters, the parents need to determine what is going on. Is the student at the right school? Is it a brains issue or a lack of work?
Rather than shuttling the student into community college, maybe it is time for the young person to enter the work force for a couple of years so that they can "find themselves." Often a couple years away from school is what many of these students need to really determine what they want to do with their life and to find motivation for attending school.
Good points, jlawrence, especially #2. Budgeting time and managing one's own workload are critical. Kids who have never had to develop these skills for themselves before college are especially vulnerable.
To the OP, a .85 average? I guessing that kid was not paying his own way.
First semesters of college are usually bumpy. Besides the above reasons you also have to take into account that all of the slackers from HS did not matriculate to college so the kids that were B students in HS, are now C students in college. Also, as mentioned above many High Schools simply don't prepare kids for the rigor of college. A student that has taken some AP and dual enrollment classes is going to be much better prepared then one who went to a school that didn't offer the opportunity. I remember my daughter saying a few weeks into her first semester of College that she had no idea how much harder she would have to work in College and how much more she was capable of.
My daughter is also finishing her first semester and is somewhat dismayed at her grades, as she was used to getting mostly A's with a couple of B's sprinkled in during high school. Going from a small-town high school to a big-city college is the difference, I believe. She does not party at all and attended almost all of her classes, but she has always struggled with math and is finishing with a C in calculus. Her other grades are A's and B's, but she's beating herself up over this C.
I am amazed how many of the kids in her college are preparing to transfer to other schools. Is this common also after the first semester?
Not to be too simplistic here, but as a university instructor who just finished posting final grades, I can offer that most, if not all, of the failing/low grades were due to poor time management. The classes I teach require case studies and team projects (yes, I hate them too, but the school dictates certain methods and reviews our syllabi). Although I try to impress upon them throughout the semester that they need to be working on these and not wait until the last minute, it doesn't sink in.
Pressure to get perfect grades, whether self- or parent-induced, can cause students to give up and not even attempt it. I hate it, but I have seen it.
My first year of college was a tough transition from the quality expected in High school. High school was extremely easy to me, including the many AP courses I took, and I coasted through it to a honors degree and top 10% class ranking. In the process, I never truly learned how to study or prepare for exams in high school classes.
Fast forward to my first couple semesters of college, and I suddenly needed to know how to study and prep for course work. I didn't know what to do when I really had to study for an exam to thoroughly understand topics. Once you get into a reputable program, all of your peers are at a much higher level and your work quality is expected to reflect that. So I struggled at first too while re-teaching myself how to prepare for classes. It's tough as well because it becomes an up-hill battle with your grades from that point forward for most of your college career.
It doesn't help that it's a lot of kids first time with the freedom of being on their own and completely in charge of their own well-being. It took me until my last 2 years to really start pulling my gpa up and doing well with classes, along with many of my peers as well.
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