Making the Transition
Making the transition between college and high school is a challenging, rewarding, and exciting process. Parents can help facilitate this transition by being understanding and supportive of the emotions that their student may be feeling during this time.
What are the differences between high school and college?
- Students who come from the top of their high school class may be shocked to realize that their college classmates have the same academic ability. Good grades in high school could often be obtained with a smaller amount of effort. This will not be true in college.
- Faculty expect students to be self-disciplined and committed to participate in learning. A large majority of the learning will happen in studying for class, not just listening in class.
- Faculty highly value students' eagerness to meet during office hours or set up appointments, but contact will not be as frequent as with high school teachers.
- College students use more independence to seek assistance. College students use academic support services, tutors, and career advisers.
- High school students are often motivated by parents and teachers and have limited freedom. College students must accept responsibility for their actions and apply self-motivation.
- College offers more distractions, and time management will become very important.
- Living away from home means that students must become more independent in their everyday lives. Remembering to do their laundry, balance their checkbook, eat a nutritious meal, and get a good amount of sleep have to be self-motivated decisions.
Making the transition: How can you help?
- Encourage calls home as needed. Will you have a regular time to call or email? Remember, a student's schedule is often irregular.
- Ask your child if he or she would like a subscription to your hometown newspaper or copies of the church bulletin. All students love mail in their campus mailbox.
- Let your student decide the frequency of visits home-they can feel guilty about not going home enough and also wanting to stay on campus to work on academics and be with friends.
- Students will be tired at breaks. Let them sleep. Expect that they will want to spend time with friends from home.
- Listen to your student, but help him or her take responsibility for their decisions.
- Agree on their academics. Parents are encouraged to ask their students for their grades.
- Don't worry about their second thoughts about their college choice. The transition is difficult for most students. Listen.
- If your child's birthday occurs while he/she is at Central, you may wish to order them a cake to share with their friends.
- Some parents may hear often about the struggles while others may hear most about the positives, but each student goes through highs and lows.
- Send your child care packages throughout the year with necessities as well as fun and exciting things.
- Let your child vent about their frustrations. If you feel like they need to complain, let them complain. If you think they need to cry, let them cry. Then, assess the situation and see if there are some suggestions you could offer.
Managing Stress (student perspective)
“Naturally I became stressed when man of my classes demanded a lot from me such as finals, but also when several tests or large assignments occurred in one week. Typically I tried not to change my schedule too much. Instead I would try to use my time more effectively. I normally would write a list of everything I needed to do and then another of everything I wanted to do. Then order each list in order of importance. Typically putting assignments that were due early first on the list. I would start with the needed to do list and move down it. When I needed a break I would do something off the wanted to do list. Typically I would try to avoid putting napping on the list. Naps can take a lot of time out of the day - use that time for working on stuff that needs to be done and sleep at night instead of vice versa. As far as health. I tried to work out but motivation in the gym is hard for me so I found a few friends who enjoyed biking and swimming. We'd swim about an hour each day and when it was nice we'd go for a 2 hr bike ride. This got me moving every day and was a great way to spend time with my friends. Also, I tried to limit my food intake to one large round plate on my tray instead of many, steered clear of the Red Rock Grill at the market as well as only allowing my self to drink water in the market (not much of a milk fan) this helped me to cut soda out of my diet. “
