Attending College Is A Major Accomplishment For Many Students.

Coming to college as an adult, we have many expectations and preconceptions of what college will or will not be. The expectations we have can influence our college life for the better or the worse. My experience since starting college has been an interesting one. People have misconceptions about college because they do not know what to expect. After doing some research, I have concluded that there are three major factors that are often misunderstood about college life. The first is the financial aspect of college. Second, is the relationship between the professors and students. Third is time management. These three factors play an important role in why people are afraid to go down the path to college.

Student engagement or the extents to which they participate in activities are key factors to the successful integration into college (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). In the publication, Seven principles of good practice for undergraduate education, Chickering and Gamson (1987) underscored seven categories of effective educational practises, which are student-faculty contact, cooperation among students, active learning, prompt feedback, time on task, high expectations, and respect for diverse talents and ways of learning. The overall scores of studies over decades indicates that student engagement in activities benefit all types of students in different degree fields. The positive interaction with activities creates the needed outcome including grades, satisfaction, and persistence. These give the student the devotion to other educational purposeful activities.. As noted by Chickering and Reisser (1993): “living on campus has long been associated with persistence and student success”. Forest (1985) also performed a study about student academic ability and found that institutions that provided the most extensive orientation, activities and advising programs had higher graduation rates. Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) reported that students in residences with strong academic orientation towards academics generally

Regardless of the type of institution, retention is one of the biggest issues that colleges encounter with the Hispanic/Latino population. The question has been posed for quite some time: What can colleges do to, not only keep these students on campus, but also to prepare them for the challenges they may face when transferring to a four-year school? Various programs on college campuses across the state of California have been implemented in the past couple of decades to help address this question. The existence of such programs, like Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), contribute to the academic success of the

First generation college students remains to be a challenge for the community college system as well as the university system (Ward, Seigel, & Davenport, 2012). The challenges extend from their lack of academic study skill practices to their lack of socialization skills (Ward, Seigel & Davenport, 2012).

I selected the article, Supporting Adult-Student Persistence in Community Colleges written by Rosemary Capps. In this article Capps investigates adult-student persistence at a community college from the perspective of the student. The article analyzes institutional factors that influence adult-student persistence and discusses the impact. Non-traditional adult-students have different motivations and goals, as well as barriers that most traditional students do not encounter. Non-traditional adult-students, require more planning and lifestyle modifications than traditional students. Adult-students may have families or spouses, full-time jobs, and debts they are responsible for.

The relevance to this study was important because it examines factors that cause withdrawals and my assist with increasing retention rates. The information collected is significant to all stakeholders who wish to retain minority students in higher education. Both public and private universities can stand to increase their knowledge base of how to improve higher education retention for minority students.

numerous authors, such as, Hu & Ma (2010), Lee & Choi (2011), Hu, McCormick, & Gonya (2012) have elaborated on the impact of how it contribute to the study of student retention. These authors concluded from their studies, that the Tinto’s Theory of Student Departure helped to enrich the understanding of student persistence in college. A mixed-method study by Morrow & Ackermann (2012) evaluated the importance of a sense of belonging and motivation in predicting intention to persist in college, and retention of students from their first to second year. One hundred and fifty-six

One of the key components in higher education enrollment management in a public, four-year university is the admissions process. With encouragement from many sources such as friends, family, and college marketing materials, high school juniors and seniors apply and enroll in college by the thousands each year (McDonough, 1994). College choice is greater now than twenty years ago, but finding the right fit for each potential student is harder due to increased college entrance standards and intense competition between institutions. Applicants now are more likely to apply to many more institutions than previous generations, yet still only attend

The writers of “First-Year Seminars Increase Persistence and Retention: A Summary of the Evidence from How College Affects Student” believe that first-year seminars improve the academic performance of college students across the nation. According to the summary, the main goal of the seminars is to increase the performance of the students in academic fields as well as social and to increase the number of students who get

Although many people will have different opinions on how to achieve personal success in college and consequently increase student retention, there are effective strategies that are proven to aid in achieving these goals.

Freshman year, the year of many first; the first time living away from home, the first time being away from friends, the first time a student has control of their own learning. Freshman year requires a lot of discipline, but a lot of students do not possess this trait. The factors that contribute to the success of first year college students are social support, comfort within the college environment, self control,responsibiliy and positive self concept.

Transitioning into higher education presents challenges for all students, whether it’s their age or previous educational history. Numerous individuals are extremely nervous as they are entering into an advanced environment such as higher education. This because college is a new learning environment at a completely different level. However, freshmen find college to be difficult at first because it’s harder for them to adjust. That’s why many universities should have student centers in place to help students. Student centers give students the pathway for flexible learning as it results in being successful in higher education (Baužienė & Vosyliūtė 2015).

Institutions of higher education pride themselves in their ability to educate, serve, and meet the needs of the students in which it serves. This analysis shows collaboration on college/university campuses to foster success among first year students. With higher education today being in a state of dynamic change, it becomes crucial that faculty members recognize that their long time traditional roles have become somewhat non-existent. That is to say that there must be a relinquishing of past ideas and procedures.

One of the biggest movements that is beginning to be implemented in many college campuses is that of the First Year Experience (FYE) program. Orientation can go only so far in making these first year students feel connected. Many institutions now build into the curriculum first-year seminars or other programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis. These programs bring together aspects of both the academic and student affairs worlds. First Year Experience programs vary from campus to campus, but many of the characteristics that each share are tied to the common goal of helping those new freshmen feel at home and better adjusted to the expectations that are associated with being a college student.

Though there has been limited research on the result of individual practices of institutions, the effects of first year protocols have been called into question. Scholars have hypothesized that attendance policies, required seminars, academic advising, and the methods used by professors to both teach and grade all are related to the retention rate of first year students. Though many