First-Year Experience Coordinator

So, you’re off to college in the fall. Congratulations! Little concerned about how you’ll do academically, how you’ll fit in, how difficult in general the transition to college will be? That’s the way most new college students feel, not that they’d say that out loud. Colleges understand this, but often see the results of students wandering the halls unsure of how to do the work, disconnected to the college, and eventually just dropping out.

To help first-year students with the transition academically, socially, and professionally most colleges now offer – and many actually require – students to enroll in a first-year seminar or orientation. Even if your college doesn’t require it, do yourself a favor and enroll in it anyway. All the statistics demonstrate the positive impact these courses have on student success.

First-Year Seminars assist students academically by teaching them what level of work is now expected of them and, more importantly, how to get organized and do it. There’s a lot of reading expected in college, but how do you read a text in science versus one in literature? How do you learn to read and identify the critical ideas? In class, how do you listen and take useful notes during lecture? How do you study for tests or do college research papers? How do you keep track of all the assignments and classes?

All of this can seem overwhelming, and all too often, out of shyness or embarrassment, students are afraid to ask for help. First-Year seminars address that problem by incorporating all the strategies for college academic success into the course.

Just as important as academic skills is involvement – both becoming aware of the services and activities each campus offers and becoming socially engaged with other students. Getting connected is huge, especially for commuter students. Help is often there, but new students don’t know where to go, and unsolved problems that start out as mole hills turn into mountains.

The faculty advisor is your new best friend, and First-Year programs effectively connect new students with their advisors. And students who discover shared interests with other students are also much more likely to stay in college, so learning what campus groups exist and joining is not only fun, but smart. Making connections with campus resources and discovering shared interests that lead to tools such as study groups can mean the difference between success and failure.

And the final big element to eventual success, particularly for Liberal Arts students who are very often unsure of their career paths, is to begin investigating career path options. Becoming aware of the enormous opportunities open to any major frees students up to pursue majors they love. Students are apt to change their minds a few times, but identifying the right major as early as possible in an academic career leads to higher GPAs, which in turn lead to greater internship, grad school, and career options. Most first-year courses will help students begin that process.

So choosing not to take that 1-credit first-year course could, in the long run, be a big mistake. Here at CMCC, we began offering a new First-Year Seminar for Associate of Arts students last fall. The course incorporates all the issues above as well as campus event programming for students, and the results have been very encouraging, mirroring the success of similar courses nationwide.

Not only did the group of students passing the course have higher GPAs at the end of the semester than their counterpart group who did not take the course, but they also re-enrolled for the Spring semester at a rate of 95%. A.A. students not taking the course returned at a 65% rate, far lower but actually very typical for a community college.

The keys to success in college – learning what’s expected of you academically and doing it, getting involved with campus services and your fellow students, and beginning the process of figuring out what your strengths are and what to do with your life – can all be started during your first semester no matter where you attend college. So be good to yourself – enroll in a first-year course wherever you go to college, even if it’s not required.

For more information on first-year seminars, call 755-5355.