By LYNN F. JACOBS and JEREMY S. HYMAN
As the next class of college freshmen prepare to pack for college, I asked Lynn F. Jacobs and Jeremy S. Hyman, authors of The Secrets of College Success, to compile some tips for getting ready academically. What follows are excerpts. –Jacques Steinberg
Pre-orient yourself.
Many colleges offer extremely elaborate orientation programs, often lasting up to a week, in which you learn the way around campus, pick your classes, and often have some group activity to forge a sense of community. It’s easy to fall prey to information overload and wind up — despite the college’s best intentions –totally disoriented. That’s why it’s crucial, before you head off to orientation, to familiarize yourself with the central academic information about your college.
Things to consider: college requirements (always available at the college Web site), schedule of classes for the fall (also available at the site, though you might need a password, which the school should be able to provide you), and, in the best case, syllabuses from the actual courses (check out the departmental pages for links to these). Getting this information in advance will not only make you a good college consumer, it’ll prevent you from being shoehorned into the “standard first-year program” by some all-too-rushed adviser. And while you’re at it, you might want to research the credit you might be able to get for any A.P. (advanced placement) or I.B. (international baccalaureate) courses you might have taken.
Get into the college “mindset.”
For most students taking the direct path from high school to college, the biggest change is that, once at college, you’re in charge. Whereas in high school your teachers and parents often held your hand — reminding you repeatedly about due dates and checking to see if you have done your homework — your college professors will expect you to operate as an independent adult. It will be enormously easy to skip class or neglect to do the reading assignments or even “forget” to turn in a paper or take an exam, without anyone rebuking you or warning about the possible consequences. So use the remaining time this summer to wean yourself of external management: take control of your life, meet your responsibilities, and get in the habit of making a schedule (electronic calendars work well) on your own.
Brush up on a foreign language.
At many colleges, the biggest single requirement is two years of a foreign language. Many freshmen have had a smattering (or more) of some foreign language in high school, whether it be Spanish or French, or for the more enterprising, and global-minded, Mandarin or Arabic. Whatever the case, the summer before college is an excellent time to get ahead on your language skills. If travel abroad is in your plans, pick a country that speaks the language you’re working on; if Spanish is your intended tongue, volunteer work in most communities can put you in a situation where Spanish is routinely spoken.
For the electronic-minded, there is a wealth of foreign-language programming on the Internet. For example, livemocha, where, the site says, you can chat for free with over 10 million native speakers in nearly 40 languages; the various “pod” sites — ChinesePod, FrenchPod, SpanishPod, and ItalianPod – where you’ll find over 1,000 podcasts, with review, practice and reinforcement; and radiolingua, where you’ll find the popular CoffeeBreakSpanish and CoffeeBreakFrench podcasts as well as the One-Minute podcasts in, among other languages, Irish, Polish, Russian and even Luxembourgish.
Do a life-changing activity.
Many students (and parents) wrongly think of the summer before college as a time to veg out and take a break from the arduous work you’ve been doing in the senior year of high school. Instead, spend this last, free summer doing something that will enrich and change your life (and perhaps do something for others). In some cases, you might consider taking an internship or apprenticeship that will further your career goals (one student interested in law worked as an unpaid intern at the New York attorney general’s office the summer before college).
For other students, travel can be a transformative experience: you’ll be in a much stronger position to study Middle-Eastern relations if you’ve just spent a few weeks touring Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. And, for those interested in the service professions, another less pricey (but potentially just as valuable) experience is a summer of service in a hospital, clinic, or hospice — or a food bank, Head Start program, or homeless shelter. Such volunteer work will not only give you an experience in helping others, it’ll make you feel good as you start college.
Source:
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06...
Posted By: How May I Help You NC
Friday, July 6th 2012 at 9:34AM
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