Read an Excerpt
College Knowledge for the Community College Student
By David Schoem The University of Michigan Press
Copyright © 2011 University of Michigan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-472-03455-0
CHAPTER 1
The Top 10 Tips for College Success and Happiness
1. Believe in Yourself
We can't overstate the importance of maintaining your self-confidence at college. You are bright and capable and — no matter what kind of academic record you had in the past — if you have good study habits and the desire to succeed, you will do just that. Know that this is true, remind yourself daily, and never question your intellectual abilities.
Many students, when they have spoken openly to us, wondered aloud whether they made a mistake in enrolling. This even includes those who may feel overly qualified in class, but who, deep down in a vulnerable place inside them, imagine that they don't really belong in college. After all, they wonder, how can they measure up to all those other smart students now sitting with them in college and actually be capable of doing college level work? This is especially true for students who have not been in a school setting for a while or those who are nervous about being less technologically proficient.
We experienced this same fear when we attended college many years ago. Both of us were good students in high school, but we worried that we would be found out once we got to college. And returning to school after being away for several years only intensified this feeling.
If such a feeling should ever come over you, let go of it immediately. You are capable of doing outstanding work. The key is discovering what your interests are, meeting good students and faculty, and developing good study skills.
When you hear others talk about all the smart people at college, know that they're talking about you. Your high school GPA? Forget it. After the first few weeks of college, high school will seem like years in the past. Your grades from the courses you took six years ago? Forget those too. No one is interested. What faculty members and the other students will be interested in is you today, in your ideas, your interests, what you care about, books you are reading, which classes you are taking, the papers you are writing now, and what you hope to accomplish in your life.
You should approach your college education with full confidence that you will graduate. And your expectation should not be just that you will graduate but that you will excel. In college you will begin the path of realizing your academic, professional, and personal dreams.
If you begin to doubt yourself, try some old fashioned "self talk." Tell yourself: I know I am smart. I know I can do well in college. I believe in myself and in my academic abilities. I can achieve to the top of my ability. I can accomplish great things. If it helps, write this somewhere, and put it in an accessible place so that you can read it to yourself as often as you need. Self-confidence is your first insurance policy for success in college.
2. Learn to Be a College Student
Community college is an entirely different universe than high school, the military, or any previous jobs you have held. Your task now is to explore that new universe as you move on to the rest of your life. Community college is a far richer, more substantive, and deeper learning environment than high school. It's important to come to college mentally prepared and with the right expectations for your college experience. Get ready to immerse yourself in an entirely different type and quality of learning.
Whether you graduated recently or years ago, never graduated, or are still in high school, the worst mistake you can make is to imagine that community college is like high school. That's a nightmarish vision. Whether you enjoyed high school or have unhappy memories of it, you don't want to waste these next several years of your life repeating the past.
By the end of twelve years of primary and secondary school, Americans have typically been introduced to five areas of intellectual thought — math, science, English, U.S. history, and often a second language. These are certainly important fields, and they are included among the subjects taught in community college. But the way that these and other subjects are taught in college is very different. You should understand that the focus in college is on ideas and on concepts and on using them to understand and solve problems in your life and in the world.
In the effort to help guide you in the process of broadening your intellectual horizons, colleges require you to select courses from a variety of disciplinary and general studies areas. Unfortunately, some students — often ones who feel that they must hurry to achieve their career goals — try to avoid requirements completely, skipping over the general education and recommended preparatory courses. Others approach these requirements as unpleasant chores that they need to get out of the way. And, of course, many students simply don't know how to approach selecting courses and making an educational plan. We urge you to recognize that exciting learning opportunities are ahead of you, especially if you develop a balanced approach to selecting your courses.
What steps can you take in your first year to embrace the best that your community college has to offer?
1. Take a small class that emphasizes discussion. You will get to know your instructor and peers as you explore the subject matter and readings. See also Tip 7 in Chapter 5.
2. Take courses with good teachers. Regardless of how interested you are in any given course content or course description, you are better off selecting your courses on the basis of the best teachers you can find. See also Tip 2 in Chapter 5.
3. Try out a new idea. Considering different ways of thinking about an issue is the very essence of college. College is a place filled with people — including you — who explore and challenge ideas. This is a chance you must not miss out on, a chance to test out your ideas. See also Tip 1 in Chapter 5.
4. Try out a new field of study that you've never considered before. Take a course in some field in which you know very little or even nothing. Take some intellectual risks, please! See also Tip 4 in Chapter 5.
5. Imagine a new career. Try out what life might be like for you if you chose to be an artist, a teacher, a small business owner, a welder, a nurse, an interpreter, a lawyer, a community organizer, or a forest ranger. See also Tip 1 in Chapter 5 and Tip 2 in Chapter 7.
6. Make new friends. Students in your college will be of all different ages and come from all backgrounds and lifestyles, and you should meet new people and learn about their experiences, ideas, and perspectives on the world. See also Tip 5 in Chapter 5.
7. Try out a new perspective. See the world from a point of view of someone who has different interests, comes from a different part of the country, or is of a different gender or race. See also Tip 7 in Chapter 6.
3. Get to Know Your Instructors
Getting to know instructors must be one of your top priorities. It will make your community college experience better. Don't consider yourself a successful student if you don't know at least one college instructor well enough to ask a question, ask for advice, discuss some academic topic, and request a letter of recommendation for jobs, scholarships, awards, internships, and further education. Until you do this, you haven't completed your college education. And if you know one or more instructors well and you're not an A or B student, you have greatly increased the chances that you will walk at graduation alongside your peers. Our experience is that most students who succeed in college have good relationships with one or more instructors.
How should you think about your instructors? Don't be intimidated! Try imagining him or her as a parent, a child, a sibling. An instructor is someone who is like you, but who also likes to spend much of his or her day reading, creating, thinking, discovering, experimenting, writing, and engaging in interesting discussions with people just like you.
Getting to know your instructors is a unique opportunity. You get to spend two or more years in their classes, their studios, and their offices, during which time your primary purpose is to pursue ideas and the intellectual life. It's in this sense that college is so different from other environments. Community college instructors are deeply committed to quality teaching, and they are also passionate about their fields of study. They are delighted to connect with you and to have you join them in their journey during your short stay in their environment. Don't miss out!
The best way to meet instructors is by taking a small discussion class so that personal relationships naturally develop. You see the instructor a few times a week in class; he or she debates ideas with you, reads your papers, and observes your work in class, providing you with insightful feedback. As a result, you'll likely feel comfortable meeting with them after class or during office hours.
There are a couple approaches you can use to get to know your instructors. You can, of course, email or go up to your instructor after class to follow up on a question that was raised in class. Another is to seek out classes or work opportunities that provide closer contact with instructors. This might be a small discussion class, a workshop, or a work study position. These opportunities, and others like them, are described in Tip 7 in Chapter 5.
A second effective approach is to meet with your professor during his or her office hours. In fact, this is one of the most important steps you can take as a student. Tip 3 in Chapter 3 explains in greater detail how you can take advantage of office hours to help you succeed in courses and develop a good working relationship with your instructors.
When it comes time to decide who you should ask to write letters of recommendation, you will be glad you have taken the time to build good relationships with your instructors. In most cases, you will be rewarded with such kind words in the letter that you'll find yourself thrilled at how proud the academic world is of your intellectual pursuits and accomplishments.
4. Get Involved and Be Engaged
It is important to your success in college that you feel an attachment to the institution and are involved in campus life. Not only is this important for your mental and emotional well-being, but it is also a central ingredient for your academic success. In our experience, students who feel connected to their community college are much more likely to do well there, go on to graduate, and report having had positive college experiences.
It's probably easier at first glance to understand the importance of being involved if you are attending a large community college. If you have just come from a high school or workplace or perhaps a neighborhood in which it seemed just about everyone knew, admired, and cared about you, you may naturally feel isolated and lonely. How will you ever stand out and be noticed?
If you are attending a smaller community college, you may anticipate that you've already addressed this concern. But in a surprising way, the experience of a small college can result in some feelings that are very similar to those of your peers at larger ones. And if you find yourself feeling isolated or lonely at a smaller school, it's likely that you'll attribute these feelings to something in you rather than to the college's size or impersonal atmosphere. It's possible that at a community college where everyone appears to be nice and interested in each individual and where students know one another, you can still feel like an outsider on the periphery.
What do you do? The simple answer is to get involved. And to get involved, you may want to attempt a variety of strategies. You can take advantage of academic structures whose very purpose is to create more personal learning environments. Some of these — like small discussion classes, learning communities, and community service learning — are described in Chapters 5 and 6. You can also get involved in campus activities, events, and organizations. Every college has a myriad of student organizations to suit your interests in politics, sports, media, art, music and theater, writing, race and ethnicity, religion, and so on. For more, see Tip 10 in Chapter 5.
The opportunities are there. Try one. In fact, try more than one, and try reaching beyond just those that have worked for you in the past.
5. Expand Your Comfort Zone
The first days of college can be rather intimidating socially. After four or more years in high school with the same group of friends or years working, serving in the military, or raising children, you may have already established a reputation among your peers and teachers or in your community as a leader and a very special person. Yet you now have to start all over. Or so it seems at the time. At this anxious moment, many students are inclined to withdraw to what feels most comfortable and familiar.
The friends you already have are important, but it's a mistake to retreat to them just for security. Many community college students come from neighborhoods and schools that are highly segregated by race, religion, and class. If you retreat to the comfort zone of your past, it's as if you are locking yourself in your room and imposing a strict curfew on yourself.
In college you have the opportunity to meet and learn with a whole range of new people with different backgrounds and different ideas from yours. They may see the world through very different lenses. Getting to know the world through their lenses in addition to your own will sharpen your vision, expand your ability to understand other perspectives, and deepen your learning and cognitive understanding of coursework.
If you have never traveled far from your home community or if you are a recent immigrant or international student, introduce yourself to other new students. In what ways do they view politics and interpret books differently or the same as you do? If you come from a liberal background, talk to a conservative student and find out that person's perspective. If you are young, work in a group with students who are older and who maybe have children your age. What do you have in common, and in what ways are your worlds so different that it takes a special effort to speak a common language?
The people that you meet in your classes are important resources, and you should take advantage of opportunities to study in groups, work on homework, and form friendships with those who are very different from you. Students in diverse classrooms often learn more deeply and understand issues in a more complex fashion. Developing the ability to study with others also translates to the workplace. Students who embrace the diversity of their post high school settings are better prepared for participating in a diverse workforce and supervising or being supervised by a wide range of people. Appreciating diversity provides the opportunity for America to realize its highest democratic ideals.
Perhaps most important for you as an individual, if you choose to take advantage of the diverse student body of your campus, you are likely to have a much richer and expansive life. Your opportunity for friendship and broad thinking will have fewer restrictions or boundaries.
6. Learn to Study Effectively
It may come as a surprise that, for many students, college success is as much a result of good study skills as it is of intellectual ability or "smarts." That's right. One of the most important keys to academic success in college is having good study skills. You have already completed high school or your GED, so you have learned how to succeed. But translating your intellectual abilities into passing grades in college requires a fair amount of new expertise in the how-to of studying and reading and writing for college.
This is so important that we have provided extensive details about it in the next three parts of this book. For now, however, we would like to emphasize that you should develop a study routine that works for you as an individual. As we explain in the following parts, you will want to decide where and what time of day to study and determine the conditions that work best for you for each of your courses and maybe even for different kinds of assignments. You may find that you can concentrate at home for some assignments but need a library or empty classroom for reading difficult material.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from College Knowledge for the Community College Student by David Schoem. Copyright © 2011 University of Michigan. Excerpted by permission of The University of Michigan Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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