What First-Year Students Should Know About Their Own Education
Dr. Jeff Heinrich
Department of Economics
University of Wisconsin - Whitewater
I recently participated in an effort on my campus called the Teacher Scholar’s Program. This particular running was dedicated to improving the retention of first-year university students in particular. Over the course of an academic year a small group of 10 faculty spent a great deal of time discussing teaching, and in particular how to improve our teaching of first-year students. Of course, a big part of any improvement project is knowing what you are starting out with, and so we sent some time reading and discussing about what first-year students are bringing to the table. As we went thought this I couldn’t help but to wonder, do our first-year students know this? Do they know the stumbling blocks they face? Do they know what needs to happen to get what they need and want out of the college experience? This paper is dedicated to doing just that, sharing with you, the first-year college or university student, a perspective on your own education so that you might become more empowered and with greater confidence take your learning experience into your own hands.
Of course, there is a limit to what you can do yourself. Education isn’t just learning; its an exchange, and exchange between “teacher” and “learner” and there’s a limit to the influence you have over the former. The learner part though, that’s you and only you. Its not clear that its even possible for anyone to teach you how to learn. When you go from secondary education to college a lot more of the burden falls on your shoulders. A lot of students collapse under the weight of academic rigor and a new and often alien social environment. It is my hope, though, that you can read this and feel like you have more empowerment over your role as a learner and thus find the transition to university life a bit more survivable.
Is this serious? Is it really necessary for you to try to learn the stuff that universities are teaching? Do you really have to change your ways to make college meaningful? Perhaps, perhaps not. But look around you at three other first year students. Statistically, out of the four of you one will not be back to school next year. Another one of you will drop out before graduation. That means that only about half of first-year students will actually go on to graduate. If you really want to be in the latter half, then yeah, it could help to take it seriously.
6. Other Random Things to Keep in Mind