Anumber of us who have been in college since we first enrolled (and that counts many faculty, both full- and part-time, as well as many administrators) can no longer recall when the land we currently inhabit seemed strange. But if we listen to the voices of students as they reflect on their first few weeks on campus, our initial feelings when we first encountered academe may begin to come back to us:
I’m worried that my classes may be too difficult and if I have a problem it might not be too easy to get in touch with the teachers. I am worried that teachers may have too many students to keep in contact with them all. I hope all our coursework will be explained effectively in class. (Stephanie)
In college, the course load is much greater and I get much more work. It is also easier to put things off in college. In high school, every class was five days a week so I had to do the homework for that class every day. But here there is a day between classes, so it’s hard not to put homework off until the night before it is due. I am worried that I may get overwhelmed with the work and not be able to handle it all at once. (Christine)
In chemistry, there’s only three exams and they’re spaced very far apart. That’s a lot of information you have to know and I don’t even know how to begin studying. Also, anatomy. There’s so much to memorize and I’m worried my study habits aren’t up to par. (Christina) I don’t know how I am going to do on tests, papers, and assignments. The workload is not out of control, but most of it is reading and I hate to read. I guess I better get used to it. I still haven’t had any tests in any of my classes so I have no idea what to expect or what to study. (Louis)
The conduct and pace of a typical college course is something with which we are intimately familiar, and so it is difficult for us to recall any longer how stark the contrast is between the routinized curriculum of the secondary school and the more idiosyncratic character of the college classroom. But students notice it right away. Their courses are larger and seem less personal; the structure is looser and the support less evident; expectations seem less clear and evaluation is less frequent. Given the abruptness of these changes—it is important to remember that there is no real transition from high school to college, only a stopping and a starting—it is not surprising that many first year students’ initial concerns revolve around the course load and the work it entails.
To some extent, of course, incoming students have been primed to shudder at the amount of work they are assigned. As we mentioned earlier, they have been barraged with the advice that college is different from high school, and most of those observations center around the amount and difficulty of course work. The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, 2004) quantifies that point, reporting that on average full-time faculty expect students to study six hours per week per course (the figure is slightly lower for part-time faculty). For a student enrolled in four or five courses, those faculty expectations come close to transforming studying into a full-time job.
As those expectations are communicated to students, in orientation or during the first few days of class, it is little wonder that college begins to seem like a place different from any they have ever experienced. Their last year in high school was indeed spent in another land. More than 80 percent of incoming college students report studying ten hours or fewer per week during that final high school year, and a mere 3 percent report studying more than twenty hours per week, a figure that would bring them in line with faculty expectations (Sax and others, 2004). The dramatic difference between students’ past practice and their future as they hear it portrayed would be enough to overwhelm most anyone’s sense of efficacy:
“I feel like I am totally overwhelmed already with all my schoolwork. It is only three weeks into the semester and I feel I am behind in every class. I just hope that I learn to manage my time better and get ahead of the game very quickly. I am just really worried I won’t do well. (Michaela)
The issue of time management looms large in any number of first year student comments, but the simple quantity of work expected is not the only thing that eats away at their confidence:
I have never studied any subjects as challenging as these. My courses are very in-depth and require a lot of careful reading and understanding of hard topics. Many times it is hard to grasp exactly the concepts without the help of the teacher. (Matthew)
The “hard topics” of college course work are often linked to assignments that require students to move beyond memorization or simple comprehension of a text to application of ideas to solve new problems or extension of ideas to new, yet to be discussed, areas. More than eight in ten faculty report that their course work emphasizes applying concepts to practical problems (NSSE, 2004)—something many, if not most, incoming students have little experience in doing, let alone studying for.
A good deal of the anxiety first-year students experience crystallizes around this issue. They enter college believing that they will need to do more work to succeed, and they indicate they are willing to do it. For example, nearly 50 percent say they anticipate studying sixteen or more hours per week during their first year in college (Kuh, 2005). Although this does not fully meet faculty expectations, it does indicate a significant change in attitude and willingness to try to engage the alien nature of academe on its own terms. Yet when confronted with a complex text and a series of questions that ask them to extend, extrapolate from, and respond to an author’s argument, their good intentions run headlong into a paucity of experience in doing what is expected:
When I went to college, everyone told me, “You’ll do fine.” However, my classes are so different at college. There are no cut-and-dried problems in most of my courses, and no neatly written notes on the board. I hope it will get easier as I go on. (Christopher)
These intellectual challenges are exacerbated by students’ perception of the effect of class size on their ability to seek and receive help from their instructors. For all the criticisms of American high schools as large, cold, impersonal places, many students entering college recall their relationships with high school teachers as both personal and helpful. More than 40 percent report talking with teachers outside of class between one and five hours a week, and a quarter of them indicated they spent time in a teacher’s home (Sax and others, 2004). The strange world of college seems to put such relationships and the assistance and support they offer beyond their reach:
One thing that has me worried is class size. I am used to a class size that does not exceed twenty-five, and here I do not have a class smaller than fifty. Up till this year all students have been exposed to a teacher one on one for their entire academic careers. I have always had great relationships with my teachers, and now I don’t feel that sense of comfort that I have been used to for the last twelve years. I understand that every professor has office hours, but my worry is more in the sense that they won’t even know my name when I get there. (Marissa)
The manner in which many college courses are conducted offers little solace to first-year students eager to do well but anxious because of the newness and the difficulty of the challenges they confront. Lecturing remains the predominant method of instruction in college classrooms, particularly those with sizable enrollments, and the rate at which material is presented can quickly outpace the note taking skills developed in a smaller, more leisurely setting. The accumulation of lecture after lecture in course after course often leaves students at a loss to understand how class time contributes anything to their learning except more notes to master before the next exam:
In my chemistry class I just write the notes and do not understand anything. My professor does not help much. (Jerelyn)
In large measure then, first-year students experience their initial weeks in the classroom separated from the support structures that sustained them throughout high school. Reading assignments asking only that chapter two in the text be read for Monday or merely announcing pages 23–157 will be covered on the exam have replaced the frequent homework that, annoying as it sometimes seemed, at least gave clear direction. Classes no longer meet daily but are a scattered patchwork, gathering sometimes two or three times a week, with nothing in particular to do between one session and the next. Instructors seem distant and a bit forbidding as they fill notebook pages with the four causes of this, the three parts of that, and the formula for calculating something or other.
It is little wonder that many first-year students share a similar lament:
Some of my teachers expect you to teach yourself. (Kiera)
I’m worried that my classes may be too difficult and if I have a problem it might not be too easy to get in touch with the teachers. I am worried that teachers may have too many students to keep in contact with them all. I hope all our coursework will be explained effectively in class. (Stephanie)
In college, the course load is much greater and I get much more work. It is also easier to put things off in college. In high school, every class was five days a week so I had to do the homework for that class every day. But here there is a day between classes, so it’s hard not to put homework off until the night before it is due. I am worried that I may get overwhelmed with the work and not be able to handle it all at once. (Christine)
In chemistry, there’s only three exams and they’re spaced very far apart. That’s a lot of information you have to know and I don’t even know how to begin studying. Also, anatomy. There’s so much to memorize and I’m worried my study habits aren’t up to par. (Christina) I don’t know how I am going to do on tests, papers, and assignments. The workload is not out of control, but most of it is reading and I hate to read. I guess I better get used to it. I still haven’t had any tests in any of my classes so I have no idea what to expect or what to study. (Louis)
The conduct and pace of a typical college course is something with which we are intimately familiar, and so it is difficult for us to recall any longer how stark the contrast is between the routinized curriculum of the secondary school and the more idiosyncratic character of the college classroom. But students notice it right away. Their courses are larger and seem less personal; the structure is looser and the support less evident; expectations seem less clear and evaluation is less frequent. Given the abruptness of these changes—it is important to remember that there is no real transition from high school to college, only a stopping and a starting—it is not surprising that many first year students’ initial concerns revolve around the course load and the work it entails.
To some extent, of course, incoming students have been primed to shudder at the amount of work they are assigned. As we mentioned earlier, they have been barraged with the advice that college is different from high school, and most of those observations center around the amount and difficulty of course work. The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, 2004) quantifies that point, reporting that on average full-time faculty expect students to study six hours per week per course (the figure is slightly lower for part-time faculty). For a student enrolled in four or five courses, those faculty expectations come close to transforming studying into a full-time job.
As those expectations are communicated to students, in orientation or during the first few days of class, it is little wonder that college begins to seem like a place different from any they have ever experienced. Their last year in high school was indeed spent in another land. More than 80 percent of incoming college students report studying ten hours or fewer per week during that final high school year, and a mere 3 percent report studying more than twenty hours per week, a figure that would bring them in line with faculty expectations (Sax and others, 2004). The dramatic difference between students’ past practice and their future as they hear it portrayed would be enough to overwhelm most anyone’s sense of efficacy:
“I feel like I am totally overwhelmed already with all my schoolwork. It is only three weeks into the semester and I feel I am behind in every class. I just hope that I learn to manage my time better and get ahead of the game very quickly. I am just really worried I won’t do well. (Michaela)
The issue of time management looms large in any number of first year student comments, but the simple quantity of work expected is not the only thing that eats away at their confidence:
I have never studied any subjects as challenging as these. My courses are very in-depth and require a lot of careful reading and understanding of hard topics. Many times it is hard to grasp exactly the concepts without the help of the teacher. (Matthew)
The “hard topics” of college course work are often linked to assignments that require students to move beyond memorization or simple comprehension of a text to application of ideas to solve new problems or extension of ideas to new, yet to be discussed, areas. More than eight in ten faculty report that their course work emphasizes applying concepts to practical problems (NSSE, 2004)—something many, if not most, incoming students have little experience in doing, let alone studying for.
A good deal of the anxiety first-year students experience crystallizes around this issue. They enter college believing that they will need to do more work to succeed, and they indicate they are willing to do it. For example, nearly 50 percent say they anticipate studying sixteen or more hours per week during their first year in college (Kuh, 2005). Although this does not fully meet faculty expectations, it does indicate a significant change in attitude and willingness to try to engage the alien nature of academe on its own terms. Yet when confronted with a complex text and a series of questions that ask them to extend, extrapolate from, and respond to an author’s argument, their good intentions run headlong into a paucity of experience in doing what is expected:
When I went to college, everyone told me, “You’ll do fine.” However, my classes are so different at college. There are no cut-and-dried problems in most of my courses, and no neatly written notes on the board. I hope it will get easier as I go on. (Christopher)
These intellectual challenges are exacerbated by students’ perception of the effect of class size on their ability to seek and receive help from their instructors. For all the criticisms of American high schools as large, cold, impersonal places, many students entering college recall their relationships with high school teachers as both personal and helpful. More than 40 percent report talking with teachers outside of class between one and five hours a week, and a quarter of them indicated they spent time in a teacher’s home (Sax and others, 2004). The strange world of college seems to put such relationships and the assistance and support they offer beyond their reach:
One thing that has me worried is class size. I am used to a class size that does not exceed twenty-five, and here I do not have a class smaller than fifty. Up till this year all students have been exposed to a teacher one on one for their entire academic careers. I have always had great relationships with my teachers, and now I don’t feel that sense of comfort that I have been used to for the last twelve years. I understand that every professor has office hours, but my worry is more in the sense that they won’t even know my name when I get there. (Marissa)
The manner in which many college courses are conducted offers little solace to first-year students eager to do well but anxious because of the newness and the difficulty of the challenges they confront. Lecturing remains the predominant method of instruction in college classrooms, particularly those with sizable enrollments, and the rate at which material is presented can quickly outpace the note taking skills developed in a smaller, more leisurely setting. The accumulation of lecture after lecture in course after course often leaves students at a loss to understand how class time contributes anything to their learning except more notes to master before the next exam:
In my chemistry class I just write the notes and do not understand anything. My professor does not help much. (Jerelyn)
In large measure then, first-year students experience their initial weeks in the classroom separated from the support structures that sustained them throughout high school. Reading assignments asking only that chapter two in the text be read for Monday or merely announcing pages 23–157 will be covered on the exam have replaced the frequent homework that, annoying as it sometimes seemed, at least gave clear direction. Classes no longer meet daily but are a scattered patchwork, gathering sometimes two or three times a week, with nothing in particular to do between one session and the next. Instructors seem distant and a bit forbidding as they fill notebook pages with the four causes of this, the three parts of that, and the formula for calculating something or other.
It is little wonder that many first-year students share a similar lament:
Some of my teachers expect you to teach yourself. (Kiera)
