Chapter 6: Evolution To College: Becoming A College Student
Chapter 6: Evolution To College: Becoming A College Student
Alise Lamoreaux
“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”
-Flora Whittemore
Questions
This chapter contains questions that are designed for you to think critically about your experience in college. It introduces terminology and concepts that will be helpful for you to understand. The questions are meant to be answered as a process of learning about how to become a successful college student – what that might look like and feel like. It may feel as though you are expected to know policies and procedures in college from the beginning. But you are not alone if you do not know what some concepts mean, where to find what you need, or who to ask for support. In fact, many college students learn about what they need to know AFTER they start college. It is OK if you do not know the answers to these questions.
When you envision yourself as a college student, what do you see?
What will your daily life in college be like?
Video: Gaming Can Make A Better World, Jane McGonigal at TED 2010
After watching the Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk, think about the following questions:
- What are gamers good at?
- What is the importance of “10,000” hours?
- Are gamers goal oriented?
- How do gamers feel about tests and being measured?
- What happens when a gamer makes a mistake?
- How do gamers handle frustration?
- How do gamers feel about change?
- Can the skills of a gamer be applicable to the skills a college student will need?
College is constant change. Not just in terms of studying and learning new material, but also in terms of how it is structured. A student’s classes, teachers, and the hours a student needs to be on campus change each term. Many students and educators felt a lot of change during the pandemic with greater online offerings and less in person presence. Quarters, trimesters, and semesters divide an academic year into thirds or halves and may have short intensive sessions in between the main semesters. Some students will take classes in summer sessions and other students not. People sometimes use the words quarters and semesters as if they are synonyms because both divide up a school year, but they represent different units of time.
Dividing up the academic year provides an opportunity for varied learning and developing specialties, but it also means new faces in classes, unknown expectations from new teachers, and juggling a new schedule. It means you may have new routes to travel on campus as you make your way to a different building if your college has a large campus. If a student is working along with going to college, it may mean negotiating new work hours with a boss and coworkers. All of these changes can feel like chaos that comes in like a tidal wave. Every term can feel like starting over, especially for students who are not in a specific program yet. The beginning of a college experience can seem blurry to a new student trying to navigate the system.
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