Some unsought-for advice to someone preparing to go off to college.
I attended a family reunion this past weekend. At last night's family dinner, I sat for a time with a niece who is going off to college in the fall. Even though she is not my daughter, my dad gene kicked in, and I regaled her with the same advice I gave each of my own children as they went off to college. I call it my three keys to college success. I came up with these three items a dozen or so years ago, on the day we moved my oldest child into her dorm for her fall freshman semester.
I wish I could report that these keys to success are the mature fruit of in-depth thinking, consultation and research, but in fact I thought them up in the course of a minute or two that day while we were standing around waiting for an elevator or some such.
Likewise, I wish I could report that the foundation for these tips is my own assiduous application of them during my own undergraduate days, but in fact my undergraduate record was anything was brilliant, and I came up with these after looking back with shame and regret on all the dopy stumbles and mistakes I made over those four+ years.
Here they are:
1. Be a neat freak. Your freshman year, you are being thrown together with a complete stranger to live in a dorm room roughly the size of a jail cell. Any compatibilities the two of you happen to share will be the result of pure, unplanned luck. Don't make the experience even more miserable than it probably will be by being a slob. Pick up after yourself. Make your bed every morning. Make sure there is a place for everything and everything in its place. Set a high standard for yourself.
2. Go to class. Nobody will roll you out of bed in the morning. If you don't show up for a lecture, nobody will chase after you. You'll be expected to fulfill all the assignments and take all the tests, and the bare minimum way to make sure you pass is to go to all the lectures, labs, activities et al.
3. Get involved. When you go off to college, you're ripping yourself out of the network of family and high-school friends which probably has sustained you to this point. You need to start building a new network. Some people are outgoing and gregarious and make friends easily. If you are not one of those people, college can be an extremely lonely place. Having nowhere to go, nothing to do and nobody to do it with can lead to deep and profound unhappiness. You need more than classes and books to lead a fulfilling life. Extracurricular activities - clubs, interest groups, et al - are the best way to forge new relationships with like-minded people.
All four of my kids got my three-keys-to-college-success speech when they went off to college. Two of them followed my advice, and did very well in college. Two of them didn't, and more or less crashed and burned in their initial leaving of the family nest; luckily, they were/are young enough to bounce back and recover after that kind of a set-back. One finally figured it out, finished school, and is now working in a good job. The other is still working on it - and my wife and I are trying to be as supportive as we can be.
I could easily come up additional keys to college success, e.g. keep up with your reading and homework; don't be a binge drinker.
What do you think of my three keys to college success? What would you add to the list?
My daughter in law formerly worked in the registrar's office of one of the universities in the state system . That job included counseling students about getting the course work lined up to complete their major, or in finding a major. She took a pay cut to move into a different position in the same school. The main headache wasn't the students. It was the helicopter parents, who were omnipresent. So one of my pieces of advice is for parents rather than students: don't be a helicopter parent.
ReplyDeleteThe second piece of advice is for students, realize that there is no such thing as casual sex. It all has consequences of one sort and another.
The third piece of advice is actually from watching my older son. He always started his homework on Friday night, and had everything done that he needed to complete by Sunday night (I didn't do that myself!) He also completed his degree in four years.
Younger son was a different story. But he has done alright too. It just took longer.
We weren't helicopter parents. Maybe that was a failing on our part; the tiger moms seem to push their kids to high achievement. Our approach was: time to sink or swim.
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DeleteJust my unscientific opinion dealing with students with helicopter parents: They are anxious, fearful, and cannot do for themselves unless their mothers are there to structure their time.
DeleteThey helicopter kids were the ones who would tell me, "I didn't do my work, what should I do now?" They would often ask me not to tell their parents. Sheesh.
I got to the point where I told everybody on Day One, "Never ask me gormless questions like, What should I do? If you've screwed up, bring me a plan for how you want to fix things that does NOT make extra work for me. Your parents will not be informed of any of this."
Worked pretty well.
I found that living in a dorm room with three other guys enforced neatness. I am not a particularly tidy person, but I don't remember neatness and organization being in any way challenging. If I could go back and start apartment living all over again, I would hope I could do a better job. Over the decades I have spent a fortune on things I didn't need and scarcely ever used. In fact, I would hate for anyone to see the number of boxes I have from Amazon that have not even been opened.
ReplyDeleteThe secret of my success (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, etc.) might fit under "go to class." May approach was to do always do everything that was obligatory and at least some of what my classmates seemed to consider optional. It was my practice always to do most of the outside reading (and to refer to it in exams). If I were giving advice to the college bound, I would stress the importance of keeping up. Don't put off assigned readings, assigned math practices, and anything else to be done on your own.
Never, ever did I stay up very late the night before an important test or (heaven forbid) "pull an all-nighter." I would allot two, three, or four reasonable evenings before a midterm or final and review all the material somewhat at leisure. I kept copious notes and usually had highlighted important material in my textbooks, and reviewing those would take up the bulk of my study time.
I didn't do much as far as "getting involved," but one thing I did pride myself on was getting along with roommates and, when necessary, keeping the peace when there were conflicts. I always thought of myself as a neutral country in a world of potential warring factions.
My college experience at a 300 student, all women’s Catholic college that was remote enough from the city to be GU ( geographically undesirable) for potential dates when we actually got out to meet the boys at Loyola was not typical. We had lots of rules - dress codes, curfews, and a made bed every day. Room checks. Etc. No boys upstairs. We signed out and in with a nun sitting at the sign out desk. No alcohol. .Not a bit like the universities our sons went to, complete with coed dorms and bathrooms. We didn’t give them advice. They knew what we hoped for and expected . It was up to them to fly - or crash land. They all flew. We didn’t have their grades sent to us. All finished college in four years.The youngest went to a US News top five university with the quarter system. He finished senior year in two quarters and was a varsity rower with a very heavy practice schedule every day and Saturdays his entire time there. Rowers are very self disciplined. To this day I dont know what their grades were. Even our most screw- up prone son made it in four years. None of them graduated with honors but they all did ok. Even our least disciplined, laziest son got in to a top 25 university. My husband’s parents had created college funds for them so we could afford private universities. We had hoped to do the same for our grandchildren but won’t be able to now.. Eldest son did little of the required reading but he has an almost photographic memory - visual and listening- and be told me later that he always went to class. And took good notes. But textbooks were a different matter. I almost cried when moving him out at graduation and found $250 new text books still in their shrink wrap.
ReplyDeleteSo I don’t have advice for the college bound.
One of my sons played on the college water polo club team, and his experience was similar to your rower son's - he did very well in school. I agree part of it was the self-discipline that athletics instills. The other part of it hearkens to one of my keys to success: being on the team gave him a social support network. They all studied together, because there were academic eligibility requirements. Plus he was one of the team leaders - he was the guy who drove the team bus, made the hotel reservations for road trips, etc. - and felt some responsibility to set an example.
DeleteNot that they weren't drinking shots of the most cheap, vile, sickly-sweet liquor during football pre-game parties in the water polo house.
A group of water related athletes revived a fraternity that had been kicked off campus years earlier. They turned it into a house for swimmers, divers, rowers and water polo players so that they could support one another and also hire their own chef who would create a training table menu for them. They partied hard I’m sure, but they were also very disciplined about their academics and during the week ( with 5:30 am practices every day, 6 days/ week and late afternoons working out in the gym every day) they liked to turn in early and the non-athletes tended to be noisy until quite late every night.They didn’t have early morning practices!
DeleteThe Boy was in band in high school and jazz band in college. Good self-discipline and team dynamics those kids have to have. Not just athletics that builds character.
DeleteYes - music is a wonderful way to become motivated to be disciplined as well as providing friendships by bonding with the other musicians. I didn’t play an instrument but I was in several high school singing groups - mixed choir, girls’ choir, Madrigals and an all girls group of 9 called the Triple trio . I made close friendships that have lasted to this day. Two years ago the foursome I was part of in high school( bonded via singing) went to visit our high school music teacher/ choir master. He is now 97. We are all 77 and 78. When we were teenagers we thought he was old. We now realize that he was only in his 30s when we were his music students. We have all visited him multiple times together over the years when I was in California and the two who live closest to him see him at least once/ year. I had hoped that at least one of our sons would take to music, but no luck. Basketball for the 6’6” son, soccer for the “ short” brother (6’) and rowing for the youngest.(6’4”).
DeleteWonderful story about your music friends visiting your teacher. My teacher friends and I all have favorite stories about the students who come back later in life and remember your class. So often it isn't the A students, but the ones you helped get over some hurdle.
DeleteKids will listen politely to Uncle Jim's sage advice at the reunion and then go find the cousin with a reliable supply of free dope to light up with. Lord knows that's what I would have done. But my uncles thought college was for pantywaists and old maids.
ReplyDeleteBetter, as Katherine suggests, to give advice to the parents about boundaries and whatnot, especially about finances and whatever strings they want to attach to it, and what they're going to do when the kid graduates and comes home to live in the basement.
Oy, those helicopter parents. I used to tell them I could not discuss their little darlings without the dean's permission. The poor dean deserved a medal for running that interference.
"Kids will listen politely to Uncle Jim's sage advice at the reunion and then go find the cousin with a reliable supply of free dope to light up with."
Delete100% right!
While I do think there is something special about college, and especially going away to college, students who have gone to good high schools really should be familiar enough with good study habits and test preparation so that the academic side of college is not a radically new experience. I think my high school education was very good, but there was something liberating about going to college, and I felt I learned more in less time than in high school.
ReplyDeleteI didn't want to go to graduate school, but I would have been more than happy to spend several more years as an undergraduate, just taking courses that interested me. I loved college, and I loved Ohio State.
I know that in my day the women students (girls) who lived in dorms were tightly supervised. But for the men (boys) it was total freedom. My parents were not particularly strict, and I was given a lot of freedom during my high school years, so the total freedom of college was no great change. Also, I was not nearly as "adventuresome" as some of my high school and college peers. One of the reasons my parents weren't strict was that they didn't need to be.
I can remember declaring, "When I live on my own, there will always be Coke in the refrigerator, and if I have one Coke and want a second, by golly, I'll have it! And when I want cookies, I will have Oreos, not the A&P store brand!" I never understood (and still don't) why when my father hosted poker night, men were aloud to have two or more beers, but I could never have two Cokes, even if they were only 8 ounces. And my father, who did most of the grocery shopping, almost always bought store-brand cookies (Ann Page) that had to eat himself so they didn't go to waste. As my sister maintained, they tased like sawdust.
DeleteWhat you said about girls being more supervised than the boys was definitely true in my experience. The girls had a curfew, which I did not at home. The Catholic college I attended as a freshman was actually less strict about things like that than the state college that I transferred to as a sophomore. One time I remember being in tears because I was five minutes late for the 10:00 pm curfew and got locked out of the dorm. Penalties could be being confined to campus on a weekend. But I rang the buzzer, and got let in, no questions asked.
DeleteYeah I was mad that the boys were free as a bird. Especially since my brother in law would party all weekend and nobody had an issue with it.
I only lived in a dorm for a couple years. Women on third floor, men on second. Communal bathrooms and kitchens on each floor. Quiet study rooms, mail room, and community rooms on first floor. We had coed holiday parties on the main floor, but not much to and fro between floors. I can only think of a couple girls who dated guys downstairs. Familiarity breeds contempt, I guess. Sometimes a lone guy would randomly knock on doors on our floor to ask how to cook something or to borrow an egg or something. Their floor always smelled like burning grilled cheese and Brut.
DeleteWhen one of my sons lived in a coed dorm with coed bathrooms ( only the washbasin room though - showers and toilets were on separate “ wings” of the central room with sinks) he told me that there was little to no dating amongst the girls and boys living in the dorm. It was frowned upon ( could cause too much tension) and was referred to as “ dormcest”.
DeleteThe dorm I was in when I was at Marymount my freshman year was coed. The boys were on the lower floor, and the girls were on the upper two. There wasn't much dating within the dorm there, either. Didn't matter, I was "going steady" with K since about three weeks after high school graduation.
DeleteHaha, "dormcest." I think that's pretty much how we must have seen it, even though we didn't have a name for it. Nothing cools ardor like seeing a bunch of guys in shower flip flops single-mindedly trying to string lights on a Christmas tree made out of empty beer cans.
DeleteI lived in a men's-only dorm for three years. Had a blast. (In retrospect, probably too much of a blast.) There were women elsewhere on campus, I don't recall it being exceptionally difficult to meet them.
DeleteThe college had some rules: no women allowed in the men's dorm room (and vice-versa) past midnight. A frequent tiresome prank was to pull a fire alarm in the dorm at 2 am on a Sunday to see who had a member of the opposite sex streaming from their room.
The college did have some coed dorms, with the sexes separated by floor. But there wasn't coed bathroom sharing. I don't think many women at this college would have stood for it.
Well the only real coed part of the bathroom was the room with all the sinks. The showers and toilets were in attached rooms ( doors separating) on either side of the sink room - separate rooms for the boys and for the girls. But brushing your teeth with the opposite sex isn’t really romance inducing. Love the image of the beer can Christmas tree strung with lights. Made me smile and few things make me smile these days.
DeleteBeginning serious planning I hope to go home at the end of august. Five days in an assisted living place has clarified the matter!
Glad to hear you can at least take one cat. I don't suppose they might let you have two since there are two of you? At least your son may take one. I miss our cats and it would be nice to have one again, but it might outlive us, and our kids have allergies in their families.
DeleteI hope you find an apartment that will fit your needs.
I was not suggesting anyone here take the cat. The older one is 17, so not like The Boy would have to deal with her for more than a couple years before she goes to the Happy Hunting Ground.
DeleteOh, I knew you weren't suggesting that anyone here take the cat. I was just reminiscing that I enjoyed our cats, but that it probably isn't realistic for us to have pets at our stage in life.
DeleteOur last cat lived to age 18. That seems to be about the age when they start to go downhill, though one of our friends had one that lived to 21.
I might volunteer to foster an older cat or hospice cat at some point, but not thinking that far down the road. The Humane Society here pretty much pays for their care if you're willing to get them out of the shelter into a quiet home for whatever time they have left. The HS automatically takes them back if you become enfeebled or die.
DeleteSince my steelworker dad had only a grade school education and my mother only a high school education, neither were in a position to helicopter me during my education. Both had become for all practical purposes, adults in their early teens, dad going off to work in the mines and mom becoming the cook for her ailing mother. Therefore, both of them permitted me to become an adult whenever I became a teen making decisions like going off to the Jesuits after high school, and then college when that did not work, graduate school etc. They never really understood any of my life in academia or even what I did in the public mental health system.
ReplyDeleteThere only intervention in my life occurred in early high school. A religious order (OMI) priest who was a friend of my pastor began sending me literature to go away to a high school seminary. Mom quietly stopped that without my knowledge. I am glad she did that; guys that I meet later on who had been to high school seminary tended to be screwed up.
While I agree that having a college roommate is a good experience, I think it is also good for college age students to live alone for at least a year. I think people have as many problems learning to live with themselves as with other people.
I have gone to and taught at both small colleges and large universities. I think students get a lot more attention at small colleges, however they can do just as well or better at large universities if they are aggressive. At large universities you have to hunt out faculty members who are absorbed in their research. However, if you are interested in what they are interested in, you will get a great education and lots of attention.
I enjoyed teaching at the small private college I retired from. Lit classes were about 8 to 12 students, which was just right for discussions and enjoyable for all. You're right that students at the big universities are used to big classes and being talked at by "the sage on the stage" in lecture halls and not getting much individualized attention. I was able to get the dept chair to let me do lecture hall one day a week and break up the class into three smaller sections on a second day of the week so there was more give and take. That worked pretty well.
DeleteHow is your garden going? Only thing I am growing from seeds this year are the nasturtiums, but I am getting quite a kick out of those. I will need to thin them soon, but can't quite bring myself to do it yet. Might transfer the runts to a new pot to see if they'll keep growing. I may try for a late crop of leaf lettuce.