My Freshman Year

I must first say that when I initially reviewed the book, My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan, I was excited and interested to read about her experience as a college freshman. Throughout my undergraduate years, I have had professors question students ‘our age’ about lack of responsibilities and lack of concern for receiving a higher education; so when I read what this book was about I thought, “Finally someone is stepping up, or should I say stepping back, to see what a college student goes through these days.” I say this because there seems to be a lot of talk and misunderstanding between professors and students where neither can relate to one another’s reasoning so I was hoping this book would clarify some of the ‘confusion’.

So let’s see, what surprised me? Well, nothing really jumps out at me as surprising. Many of the issues and topics didn’t come as a shock to me because I was just in that position. Just this past spring I was an undergrad so I could relate to many of the situations.

However, there were a couple things that I found interesting throughout the book. The first thing that caught my attention was on page 120 in the chapter ‘the art of college management’. Nathan gave a brief background about a particularly large lecture class that she was currently enrolled in. Her professor provided a booklet of lecture notes that could be purchased for the class rather than having the students write down her every last word. She then went on to say there had been no attendance requirement for the course, which led to roughly 56 percent of the class actually showing up on a regular basis. That’s almost half! Although there are only 22 students in the course I am currently teaching, I don’t know what I would do with only 11 students. It would feel more like a group meeting. How do you even teach a lesson plan with that many students absent? If that number was low already, Nathan explained a particular time that the professor told the students that the material covered in the next class period would not be on the test; that resulted in only 11 percent of the class showing up.

This leads me to the second thing that I found interesting. In the final chapter of My Freshman Year, Nathan recalls a particular situation that she encountered with a study buddy. As many freshmen do to study for a midterm, she met up with a guy named Ray in her dorm around 10 pm the night before the exam. They quizzed each other back and forth on French vocabulary when she found herself ‘caught between her two roles’ as she stated. When they began covering an area that wouldn’t be on the test, Nathan expressed to Ray that they need not cover that material. To her surprise he responded, “Is that the only reason you are learning this material…for the test? Don’t you want to learn to speak French better? Come on, do it.” In her words, she was mortified. Here she found herself thinking as a student.

There were two things that stuck out to me here. The first one was that she had adapted the role of the student and didn’t even realize it. I believe that there are certain things we do without even thinking about it, for they just come naturally, such as skipping over material we don’t need to know to better perfect the material we do.

With that, this situation raises a good question, ‘since when did we stop wanting to learn?’ This example goes to show that many students spend so much time studying or doing homework because they have to, not because they want to. Although I have been in this position before, I never thought about the broader picture, learning because we have to or learning because we want to. Although I do not have an answer for the beginning question, I think it is something that we should all keep in mind next time we have an assignment or exam.


Advice to new instructors

The only real advice that I would give to a new instructor is for them to be understanding. Understanding of schedule conflicts, understanding of grades, understanding of events that happen outside of the classroom. From my experience as an undergrad in correlation with teaching an undergrad course, I can now see both sides to a particular situation. For example, a student had questioned me about missing a class because of his work schedule. He wanted to know how much he would be penelized for missing a day because he didn’t want to leave work just to attend a 50-minute class period. I explained that his work isn’t an excused absence, and we discussed ahead of time what he would be miss if he were not to come to class. Although he ended up coming to class that day, he thanked me for taking the time to go over the material with him. This situation also made me think about the material that I do cover in a class. Each day should be just as important as the next. I wouldn’t let students believe that they don’t need to come to class on a particular day because they ‘ won’t miss anything’. They should always miss something, no matter how big or small.


Did this book change my perspective?

I have to admit that this book did not change how I look at undergraduate students. Not because it wasn’t a good book, but a lot of the information and situations I just experienced for myself. I completed my undergraduate work in 3.5 years, with honors, while working anywhere between twenty to forty hours a week. I do not think that working while going to school is good for everyone, I managed myself quite well most of the time. In fact, it gave me a break from my normal routine course work and allowed me to meet great friends outside of the classroom.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this book to someone coming right out of their undergraduate work, but I would recommend it to a new professor who has been out of school for quite some time. After all, things have changed rapidly between teaching styles, internet use, and the economy and it would be best if a professor would be able to at least understand where their students are coming from, even if it doesn’t always work for the best. It is better to know and understand than to THINK you know and not understand.