Marlon Meng 12/05/2024
Jeffrey J. Selingo’s article, The hardest test of freshman year? Survival. (2017), primarily argues what general challenges most college freshmen face and how they can survive in the first year. Selingo states that academics and passiveness are the two primary reasons why freshmen get derailed. In order to help with this problem, suggestions provided by Selingo are mainly discussed around universities and colleges should pay more attention to freshmen and enhance their vitality and engagement. For instance, colleges should figure out ways to provide smaller classes for freshmen rather than large lecture-style classes. In fact, some of Selingo’s views about freshman year are feasible. However, Selingo overstated the difficulty of freshman year and proposed parts of illogical suggestions for freshmen to survive.
As opposed to one of the opinions by Selingo, college classes are not really difficult in the first year because most college students register for lower-division (fundamental college-level) courses during their freshman year, which helps them to have a smoother transition from high schools to colleges. For example, Advanced Placement (AP) courses provide opportunities for high school students to access college-level course content before they enroll in colleges, which play an obvious role in the United States high school teaching system. The difficulty of learning AP courses is the same with the most lower-division courses in colleges, because getting higher scores in AP exams allows college freshmen to replace basic courses in related subjects in most universities, which means they do not need to attend some basic college courses. Therefore, first year college students who have taken AP courses in high school can better acclimatize themselves to college education. Moreover, Selingo only points out building clearer pathways through four years and to help college freshmen “better see and understand their route to a degree.” Nevertheless, Selingo does not mention these pathways for college freshmen, which start at high school level, making their transition from high schools to colleges easier.
Selingo demonstrates that “too many freshmen treat college as a spectator sport, waiting for it to happen to them.” From the consensus view, freshmen in most universities and colleges are passive in their academic studies and college lives, but these are not only caused by themselves. As Selingo mentions in the article, freshmen are often locked in large classes in which they rarely have opportunities to talk with faculty members and to find themselves interacting with graduate teaching assistants and part-time professors. This is a common situation that Selingo points out and advises colleges to improve by providing more small-scale classes to build more networking between freshmen and faculty members.
As Selingo’s statement, one of the main factors that restricts college freshmen from being proactive to their college lives and communities is their living place, dormitory. Luxury dorms with private bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens make college freshmen feel too comfortable to stay in their dorms during spare time, so that will not provide them with more opportunities to meet new friends. As Selingo mentions, “colleges are beginning to move back to the basics,” which refers to colleges that have started to build dorms with smaller rooms and more study space in students’ residence halls, in order to reduce costs for students and allow them to make friends and feel more connected. This is effective for college freshmen to network with peers better and adapt to their college lives. These reasons clearly explain why many freshmen treat college as a spectator sport, and improving methods above are feasible to make freshmen reduce their passiveness in their first year of college.
Nothing can compel college freshmen to engage early on and find their small circle of friends actively, as opposed to one of the suggestions for freshmen by Selingo. The reason is that every single college freshman has their own way and time period to adapt to college life. For instance, introverted college freshmen do not socialize much, and usually go back and forth between classrooms and their dorms. According to their introverted personalities, they may spend a semester or more adjusting to their new lives. In contrast, extroverted college freshmen are more willing to participate in a variety of activities, and often make new friends. This allows them to easily integrate into new groups and communities. As a result, extroverts may adjust to college life more quickly than introverts. Nevertheless, college freshmen still need to adapt to their college lives by themselves. If universities and colleges try to force freshmen to study hard or get involved in college life in some ways, freshmen will become more averse to both their studies and their social activities on campus.
In conclusion, Selingo’s main point in writing this article is logical, however, it is superficial in some of his perspectives of freshmen. Selingo provides a direction to help freshmen better “survive,” but it requires colleges and students themselves to improve the circumstances of first-year students through practice.
References:
Jeffrey J. Selingo. 2017. The hardest test of freshman year? Survival.
The Washington Post. From:
Marlon's Portfolio 