Student Mentors: Helping Freshmen adjust to the College Experience

Parent Cafe
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<p>At many residential colleges, RAs, or Resident Assistants, provide support and assistance to dormitory residents, and supervise, - and hopefully even enforce the rules - within the residence halls. For many kids, a good RA can make all the difference as they make the daunting leap from high school to college.</p>

<p>It certainly is helpful to read about those programs aimed to help students make the transition from high school senior to college freshman. UConn has a good thing going on with their student mentor program designed to help freshmen adjust to the challenges of college life. Student mentors at UConn are trained by the university to help new students cope with a wide range of problems such as developing good study habits and dealing with troublesome roommates. Student Mentors take INTD 180 (Interdepartmental University Learning Skills), a one-credit First Year Experience course, which is taken by about 80 percent of new arrivals.</p>

<p>"Undergraduate mentors lauded for assistance with first-year studentsUndergraduate mentors lauded for assistance with first-year students":</p>

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Kate Lennard and Laura Rowley, share a common desire to assist others, and stand out, Ouimette says, for their adroitness in transcending the usual mentoring duties.</p>

<p>“I had a lot of friends who had difficult transitions from high school to college,” says Lennard, a 20-year-old junior who signed up to become a mentor before the end of her first semester as a freshman.</p>

<p>One of the things Lennard did for her First Year Experience course was to devise a role-playing game to explore the issue of diversity.</p>

<p>In the game, students choose which characters will be among a third of their class to survive a disaster.</p>

<p>“I played the devil's advocate,” she says, adding that her goal was to encourage the students to “understand where people come from.</p>

<p>“I grew up in Brooklyn, New York,” she says, “in a neighborhood where there were people of every age, every ethnicity, and every background.”...</p>

<p>Rowley's adjustment to UConn was fraught with difficulties.</p>

<p>“I was undecided as a major and had roommate issues,” recalls the 21-year-old senior majoring in human development and family studies.</p>

<p>“The mentor in my First Year Experience course helped me figure it out, and was really supportive of everyone in the class. I wanted to give back.”</p>

<p>And so she has.</p>

<p>Meeting the criteria, which include maintaining a 2.5 or higher grade point average and taking an educational psychology course focusing on peer education, she became a First Year Experience mentor as a sophomore.</p>

<p>Rowley, who is headed to graduate school to specialize in Student Affairs, also helps teach students who are becoming mentors.</p>

<p>“At first I was really shy about getting in front of a class,” Rowley says. But it became easier “the more I saw they were benefiting from what I was doing.”</p>

<p>She usually begins her FYE class by asking students about their weekend.</p>

<p>“The idea is to create a laid-back atmosphere,” she says.</p>

<p>“Then I give input, talking about personal experiences like time management and how in high school I never wrote anything down and never had to worry about it. And how that isn't going to work here.</p>

<p>“A lot of trouble comes with what classes to take and with what teachers, struggling with certain courses, not studying the way you used to in high school, how to get involved in campus activities, roommate issues, and how to cope with not getting such good grades,” Rowley adds.</p>

<p>This semester, she is teaching her own section of a First Year Experience course.</p>

<p>“Although I do have a mentor, I consider her an equal partner,” Rowley says.</p>

<p>“However, I do all of the lesson planning, grading, course website design, and grading – pretty much all of the instructor duties.”</p>

<p>The First Year Experience program debuted in 1996, as a pilot program aimed at improving retention of first-year students, as well as easing the passage from high school to college.</p>

<p>“It has been highly successful,” says Ouimette, the program director, citing statistics showing that the first-year student retention rate has risen from about 86 percent in the mid-1990s to 92 percent this year.</p>

<p>The number of First Year Experience mentors varies from semester to semester.</p>

<p>For fall 2006, 150 students applied and 90 were chosen, including some whose experiences as freshmen were similar to Rowley's.</p>

<p>“Being a freshman was hard for me,” says Rowley.</p>

<p>“So to have people tell you, ‘You made an impact on my experience' means the world to me, and makes it all worthwhile.”

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<p><a href="http://www.advance.uconn.edu/2006/061204/06120411.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.advance.uconn.edu/2006/061204/06120411.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>many schools have first year experience programs often designed to assist those whose families don't have higher education or are immigrants or low income and may need more support.
Us News has a list and these sites will also give more resources
<a href="http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/First-Year.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/First-Year.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/pResources.asp?pid=73%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.evergreen.edu/washcenter/pResources.asp?pid=73&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Im not sure why two threads on freshman transition were started a day apart but perhaps the mods could combine them?
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=271162%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=271162&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>EK4, thanks for the above posted resource links on student mentoring.</p>

<p>Btw, I started a separate thread for the Princeton piece because, as I read it, it doesn't deal with the problems of transition - and the need for RA's, mentors, or other resources to help cope with all the pressures and changes of the leap from high school to college. Instead, it just does a good job presenting the interviewed students' expectations and changed perceptions about Princetion before and after attending. So although I really don't see that much of a direct connection between that article and the UConn article on student mentoring - apart from the focus on freshman year - I find it interesting that you do!</p>

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<p>EK4, "Improving the Odds for Freshman Success" is a fantastic article - thanks again for the NACADA link!</p>

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The first year of college is trying for many students; new responsibilities and expectations can be overwhelming. For this reason a large percentage of students do not make it to their sophomore year. Gardner and Siegel (2001) cite data gathered by ACT indicating that 28% of students in public four year institutions fail to continue beyond their first year in college. Because of this, and other factors, interventions targeted to first-year students have become important. Many institutions have adopted programs designed to provide a "rite of passage" in which students are welcomed, supported, celebrated, and eventually assimilated into the campus (Gardner, 1986).</p>

<p>Theories That Help</p>

<p>Understanding the development of matriculating students is essential to those seeking to make a difference in these students' lives. Vincent Tinto (1993) outlined three stages students move through: separation, transition and incorporation. Students first go through a separation stage in which they move away from their home environment. Although this can be quite traumatic for students, most eventually are able to move to the second stage, transition . During this stage students are torn between their old environment and the new one; they may not feel they belong in their old environments but have yet to find their places in the new one. Finally students move into incorporation when they have achieved full membership into the social and academic communities of the institution. </p>

<p>Historical Perspective for Supporting First-Year Students</p>

<p>The academy has known for over a century that first-year students face unique challenges. Boston College pioneered the first Freshman Orientation class in 1888 (Gardner, 1986). Reed College (Portland, OR) became the first institution to schedule an orientation course for credit when, in 1911, they offered a course separated into men-only and women-only sections that met 2 hours per week for the year (Gardner, 1986).</p>

<p>Orientation classes acquired their modern form in 1972 when, after a series of campus riots then University of South Carolina President, Thomas Jones asked faculty to develop innovative ways to rethink undergraduate education. Jones' goal was to help students appreciate the university and not destroy it (Schroeder, 2003). History professor John Gardner helped develop what eventually became known as the First-Year Experience, or FYE (Schroeder, 2003). Gardner, in an interview with Schroeder (2003), defined FYE as "a national and international effort to improve the first-year, the total experience of students - and to do this intentionally and by rethinking the way the first-year was organized and executed" (p. 10).</p>

<p>As competition for students increased during the last quarter of the 20th Century, institutions turned their focus on the needs of entering students in an effort to make their institutions more appealing. The popularity of programs targeting the first-year students soared. Gardner (1986) illuminated factors that influence the success or failure of first-year programs. For instance, altruism is of particular importance to the effectiveness of a program; faculty and staff must share a genuine concern for new students.</p>

<p>In today's climate of declining revenues and higher enrollment standards, institutions must exert extra efforts to keep the students they have worked so hard to recruit (Gardner, 1986). Many colleges and universities are aware of the changing nature of the term "freshman" as the number of nontraditional, older, married, and working students continues to increase. Successful institutions realize that systems must be in place to address the needs of students who differ markedly from the traditional residential freshman. So too must institutions have programs that address the growing number of recent high school graduates who enter with poor academic foundations. Finally, institutions must educate these entering students regarding their rights and obligations in today's college environment.</p>

<p>Gardner (1986) highlighted the importance of programs that focus on the first few weeks of college when many students make the decision to drop-out. During this period students feel increased personal independence and form the habits and relationships they will carry throughout their college careers. Gardner (2001) also noted that during this time students make judgments about faculty and their major, although the latter is apt to change. He (1986) further suggested that a number of actions can improve the freshman year including curriculum modifications, enhanced academic advisement, faculty (instead of graduate student) teaching freshmen level courses, extended/continuing orientation, living/learning environments, peer counseling, and special freshmen administrative units.

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