Problem:

The jump from high school to college is a large jump in the development process of the average high school student. Students finish their senior year with great anticipation for their time in college, however when that time arrives many leave excited to move on, but scared due to the fact of the unknown. They come to a realization that they will no longer be living with their parents, have the same friends, and live in the same town.

Common Factors:

• In college the support systems those freshmen have built for themselves from previous environments may be gone, or no longer supportive. The student needs to start from scratch.
• A cultural and environmental change- small city to big college
• The feeling of being needed and wanted
• Fear of the uncertainty-not knowing what this experience is going to be like

Development:

The freshman year can be a very overwhelming experience. This is a natural process to go through as one develops emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Arthur Chickering has done many studies involving the development of the college student. He offers seven Vectors of student development:

1. Achieving Competence: The procession in the college years is toward increased competence in intellectual areas, in physical and manual skills, and in social and interpersonal relationships. All three of these tie into a student’s sense of competence, showing that he has the ability to deal with these circumstances successfully.
2. Managing Emotions: Students must wrestle with a variety of intense emotions that have both biological and social origins.
3. Developing Autonomy: As competence develops, the individual disengages from parents and the need for approval and reassurance and simultaneously recognizes the importance of others.
4. Establishing Identity: (Pivotal) Establishment of identity depends in part on growth along the competence, emotions, and autonomy vectors, and development on this vector fosters and facilitates changes along the remaining three.
5. Freeing Interpersonal Relationships: As a personal identity is shaped, an increased ability to interact with others emerges.
6. Developing Purpose: Growth requires the development of plans that integrate priorities in recreational and vocational interests, vocational plans and aspirations, and life-style choices.
7. Developing Integrity: The clarification of a personally valid set of beliefs that have some internal consistency and that provide at least a tentative guide for behavior.

These seven vectors are to be developed over the four-year period a student is in school. An uninformed freshman that shows up at school with unrealistic expectations is going to run into shock. College is hard enough to deal with in their studies let alone their development into adulthood. Even when one is somewhat prepared by family, peers, teachers, etc...there will still be adjustment. To make him feel out of control due to the great level of change and growth needed to catch up.

What You can Do

The goal is to inform students, “many students enter college with only vague notions of what undergraduate education is all about, where it is supposed to lead, and what their institutions expect from them.” Informing your students of expectations and getting them involved is key to the success of the college transition.

Struggling through the first year of college is normal and expected. Help comes in the area of declining the growth curve. College students need to feel success as they begin their new journey.

This is a time where students, especially those who live on campus, begin to figure out who they really are, what is really important, their true convictions of faith, and life.

The Freshman Year   What to Bring   Important Residence Forms