First-Year Seminars Increase Persistence And Retention

The environment of a seminar-based college classroom has a lot to do with student’s personal

College is indirectly served to have fun, make new friends, and learn about ourselves. As an attendant at Miami-Dade College I would never forget the real reason for enrolling in this institution. Any other individual who is a current student should know that education is the knowledge of putting potential to maximum use. Throughout the semester I have been given various assignments and objectives to comprehend making it challenging. At Miami-Dade College, the professors offer a variety of ways that can ensure academic success. My academic success this semester came with being able to be self-motivated, communicate with professors, and use available resources throughout the campus.

Some of the graduates stated they believe their determination to persist to graduation was due to having a mentor to help them throughout their college experience. A way to further this study could be to study the experiences of graduates who had mentors versus those who did not have a mentor and evaluate how this had an impact on their persistence to graduate.

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).

To begin, the First Year Seminar course, WVUE 191, as directed by Scott Robertson himself, provided a relaxing, one-hour class that allowed students to share their personal and academic backgrounds and receive feedback on how to handle life and adulthood in school safely and responsibly. All the work assigned was simple to do, but at the same time, gave loads of insight about the ins and outs on what to expect for the rest of the semester up to graduation and beyond.

To my fellow college classmates, I'm going to set you guys up for college success. The very first thing to college success is showing up, you need drive and motivation to push yourself through college. Not all days will be stunning but if you’re going to make through college you will need have the desire to exceed. Next thing for college success is taking responsibilities for yourself, you need make sure that you have all component’s you need for yourself successful in your own system. Another thing for college success taking notes in class, not all classmates love this, but it will make you recognize important subjects that your class is trying to teach you. Great notes will make your class a lot easier for you exceed and working you get that

Spending so much time together gives little opportunity for first-year students to be exposed to older students. In a sense, putting the first-year students together constantly is like picking up a high school class and placing it in a different setting. It is important, from the beginning, to show first-year students the differences in climate between high school and college. Exposing them to older students would assist in this endeavor.

The lecture is the traditional and continues to be the key method of teaching and learning in most universities. University lecture attendance is a significant issue in universities all around the world and the drivers of this have been the subjects of a number of studies e.g. (Gump, 2004) (Dolnicar, 2009)

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

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.

College students at this point in their lives must exercise their voices and argue what they believe passionate about. High school classes often teach students to go along with what the majority thinks in order to get a good grade on the assignment. College is the stage before a student begins functioning as a citizen in society and they must be able to know how to stand up for themselves. If participation is not required in a college class, then students will not know how to stand up to a disrespectful boss in their field. Students should be required to engage in class and group discussions in order to learn how to control their anxiety under pressure. Moreover, this will benefit shy students tremendously by forcing them to step outside of their comfort zone and learn a new skill. College classes should be the place that students learn and discover who they are and without active participation than students will never realize their true

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).

This essay will examine how social skills and personal attributes help first year university students in the way to academic success. Glogowska, Young and Lockyer (as cited in Richardson, King, Garrett & Wrench, 2012, p.88) noted that many first year students decide to leave university as the consequence of health issue and academic challenges. Concern that academic skills are not enough for students to deal with the problem of transition period and students need more skills and abilities to reach their academic goals.

Upon identifying programs available on various college campuses as they relate to first year students; it has become noticeable that university leaders are concerned with the retention of students within their first and second year of college. Therefore many universities have developed programs that are focused on the success of the freshman student and ensuring that group of students’ matriculations throughout their degree programs. As quoted in “The Dynamics of Organization in Higher Education (Kuh, 1996) “the frequent and increasingly predictable accusation that institutions of higher education operate in “silos” is based on their various schools, colleges, and athletic programs operating in parallel with one another, more focused on promoting than on adhering to or accomplishing broader institutional

Most of the organized events reach the student population with loud Facebook campaigns and tempting slogans such as “free”, yet people still fail to show up when they need to. Could it be that students fail to attend these meetings due to the overwhelming publicity? It is quite understandable that freshmen of all classmen are the ones who over commit; they are simply excited to part of the university life. As freshmen adapt to college routine, they start to realize what