It’s one of the most frustrating facts in education: Compared with peers from middle- and upper-class families, students from working-class families—those who are low-income or the first in their families to attend college—struggle to achieve in college. Even the most highly qualified working-class students receive lower GPAs and drop out more often than their middle- and upper-class peers. Since education is a powerful engine of social mobility, this persistent achievement gap means that the American dream remains out of reach for far too many working-class students.
What’s going on? To explain these dismal outcomes, policymakers often point to what working-class students lack. Many face real obstacles in terms of academic skills such as writing or math, and may need additional tutoring because they attended low quality high schools. Many also struggle with meeting their basic needs while in school: Recent surveys have found that 9 percent of college students in the U.S. do not have reliable housing, and, remarkably, half report anxiety about getting enough food.
Yet even when universities address these challenges, social class achievement gaps persist. As one survey found, even if you take prior academic preparation into account, you’ll still see achievement gaps. Similarly prepared students from different backgrounds fare differently after they reach the college gates. It’s clear that something deeper is also at work, and that something happens during college.
We’ve spent years studying this phenomenon, and our research has identified an additional obstacle for working-class students that is often unseen, but plays a key role in fueling these disparities: a cultural mismatch between working-class students and the schools they attend. Many of these students report feeling like their college or university is not set up for students “like them,” or feeling like they are guests in someone else’s house. These experiences reflect a critical insight, one that colleges need to take into account if they want to help narrow America’s social class opportunity gap.
As sociologist Pierre Bourdieu observed, culture is a key mechanism for creating social class inequality—taken-for-granted cues and behaviors that may have nothing to do with people’s actual abilities, but become part of our institutional standards and get defined as merit. In higher education, for example, our research shows that universities tend to rely on standards of merit that reflect independent values, leading educators to assume that students should pave their own paths, be independent thinkers, challenge norms and rules, and feel comfortable expressing their personal preferences.
Decades of research in the social sciences shows that people from working-class communities tend to prioritize a different set of values, including being socially responsive, adjusting to others, and being part of a group — values of interdependence. They do so, in part, because they have fewer material resources than people raised in middle- and upper-class contexts, and therefore have less choice, influence, and control over their lives. Without an economic safety net, they are often socialized to follow the rules and attend to others’ needs and interests. While middle- and upper-class families tend to raise their children with the promise that the “world is your oyster,” many working-class families are built around a different reality: “You can’t always get what you want.”
These divergent values can guide students’ experiences in college. When asked why they’re motivated to attend college, students from middle- and upper-class backgrounds tend to focus on goals that reflect universities’ standards of independence, such as exploring personal passions or making a mark on the world. By contrast, our research has found that working-class students more often focus on goals that reflect standards of interdependence, such as helping their families or giving back to their communities.They oftenenter educational settings with little experience focusing on themselves and exploring personal passions, and are instead more prepared to focus on others and contribute to a group. When working-class students don’t promote their individual interests like their middle-class peers have learned to do, they often get viewed as lesser or deficient.
This cultural mismatch between the university culture of independence and working-class norms of interdependence is consequential. In a series of experiments, we have found that exposing students to the university’s cultural standard of independence (e.g., pave your own path) can increase working-class students’ stress, reduce their sense of belonging and undermine performance. The college culture of independence can further undermine working-class students’ opportunity to succeed because it encourages students to take a narrow focus on individual responsibility. As a result, when facing setbacks, working-class students tend to believe that they—and they alone—are responsible, thinking, “I just don’t have what it takes” or “I must not be smart enough.” The emphasis on independence may also discourage them from seeking tutoring or mentoring, thinking that they need to figure things out on their own. In that sense, the university’s emphasis on independence can not only lead working-class students to be labeled deficient, but also create the very “deficiencies” that are so often assumed to characterize them.
What can policymakers and educators do to address social class gaps in students’ academic outcomes? The very idea of institution-student cultural mismatch contains the solution: when universities incorporate interdependence along with independence into their cultures, working-class students benefit. In our studies, we find that doing something as simple as revising a university welcome messageto include concepts of interdependence(e.g., be part of a community) leads working-class students to perform just as well as their socioeconomically advantaged peers on an academic task. Universities should therefore consider changing their websites, orientation materials and student guidebooks to incorporate the value of interdependence.
Another simple fix is to promote more group learning. In ongoing research led by Andrea Dittmann, we are finding that asking students to work together interdependently on a problem-solving task can lead groups of working-class students to outperform groups of their socioeconomically advantaged peers. Universities should therefore emphasize the value of working in groups; promote a community of peers who can navigate college together; and connect all students to the support of advisors or mentors.
The fact that changing the university culture can close—or even reverse—social class achievement gaps challenges the idea that working-class students are deficient. Instead, it suggests that many students do not reach their potential because the university culture is, in fact, not set up for students like them.
In our research with Stanford University research scientist MarYam Hamedani, we’ve found that it can be transformational to teach working-class students this critical lesson: Their setbacks in college are not because of their individual deficiencies, but instead due to contextual factors such as differences in preparation. In one orientation program designed to convey this message, a working-class student discussed how his background—going to a less rigorous high school and not having college-educated parents—led him to have a difficult time adjusting to college and making the right decisions for his future career. From this student’s story, incoming students learn that this student’s challenges aren’t because he is individually deficient or incapable, but because he comes from a different social class context. In our intervention studies, we’ve shown that simply being offered this lesson increases working-class students’ willingness to seek help and improves their grades throughout college. And further, all students can benefit from incorporating more contextual ways of thinking in college.
Together, this work suggests that policymakers, educators and practitioners will have greater success promoting the achievement of working-class students if they take a hard look at the cultures of universities themselves. Bridging resource and skill gaps is a necessary first step to helping these students achieve, but if we truly want to level the playing field, we must expand the culture of higher education to include interdependence as well as independence. That’s the best way to ensure that working-class students are neither labeled—nor rendered—deficient by the university culture, and to make the American dream more accessible to those who need it the most.
Nicole Stephens is associate professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Sarah Townsend is the Kenneth King Stonier Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.
Establishing a strong support system at university
Whether you are a student at college or university, higher education is one of the most challenging things that any individual can put themselves through. Without a doubt, being a student in college or university is a unique experience, allowing you to grow in ways you never thought were even possible. However, there will be moments of struggle and that is why having a reliable support system that genuinely cares about you and wants to help you succeed is more important than you could possibly imagine. This is especially true if you have moved away from home to attend college or university.
Finding your clique on campus
The first notable difference any student will notice is that unlike high school, you will not see familiar faces throughout the day. If you happen to notice someone who is in all of your classes, you should reach out to them as potential study mates. However, if there are no such students, you might find that it is exceptionally hard to build connections because everyone else is in a different faculty.
However, if you are outgoing and able to make friends easily, it is important to cultivate those relationships, so you have someone to depend on, rather than realising in your darkest moments that there is no one to reach out to.
Joining a club or community or talking to a counsellor
If you are not as outgoing, an on-campus adviser might be able to point you in the direction of a suitable community club or activity you could thrive in.
From the on-campus gym or a student-run club, it is possible to find a niche to call your own. As they say, birds of a feather flock together and when you have like-minded people, it would be easier to form bonds and a support system. It would also help you build your portfolio or resume, especially if it allows you to showcase your skills.
Self-support is more important than soldiering on
Achieving academic excellence is important, it is true, but more than that it is important to take care of yourself first. You can retake classes. You can defer college or university for a semester, even a year if you want to. But your mental health and whole wellbeing is something that you should be prioritising before everything else – including academic success. Achieving perfect grade point averages means nothing if you do not have a firm handle on your mental state at the end of it all. Make a point to constantly prioritise you – even if it means dropping classes while you do so.
There will be struggles no matter which path you take
It does not necessarily matter what it is that you want to do once you graduate. Whether you want to become a diesel mechanic, an IT security member, an author, a doctor, or even the owner of a digital marketing agency, at the end of the day the academic journey to get there is going to have its highs and lows.
Sometimes the lows come in the form of a course you cannot seem to grasp, or an assessment block that is impending, and sometimes the lows come from feeling isolated and lonely, even detached, from everyone around you. First and foremost, understanding that these moments of struggle are just that – moments. As with the best moments, they will pass…even if it feels like an eternity before they do. What can often end up spelling out the fundamental difference between students who overcome struggle and those who do not, is the support system (or lack thereof) that they build during their time as a student in higher education.
You are who you surround yourself with
The single most valuable advice anyone can ever give you as a student is to create a support system for yourself that you would happily suggest for another person to have. Forging a strong and reliable support system while you are at university is the key to getting through even the roughest of patches. It goes without saying that the idea of being alone when struggling is a sad one, and it is definitely not one to be taken lightly. It is true when people say that you are a reflection of the ten, even twenty individuals you cherish the most. The first step to finding out who you are is surrounding yourself with people that you genuinely like, and that have your best interests at heart. At college or university, this means surrounding yourself with people who are going to help you study, keep you afloat when you struggle, and celebrate your wins with you – and vice versa. Anything else is secondary.
During your years in higher education, you are going to experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. This is the nature of college and/or university, it is the natural progression of the experience. Moments of struggle can be incredibly difficult to surpass, particularly if you have never experienced this type of struggle before. More than anything else, having a stable, loving support system during your time as a student is the central puzzle piece that will get you from here to graduation and beyond. The most important thing, at the end of any day, is feeling like you can get through the school year. Taking it one step at a time, without needing to rush, is a skill, and it takes time to master it. Allow yourself the time to practice. After all, practice makes perfect, right? And in the meantime, spend time with the support system you have created for yourself. You chose them for a reason. Do not take them for granted, and they will never take you for granted in return. It’s a genuine win-win.
Byline – Anton Lucanus is the Director of Neliti. During his college years, he maintained a perfect GPA, was published in a top cancer journal, and received many of his country’s most prestigious undergraduate scholarships. Anton writes for The College Puzzle as a means to guide current students to achieve personal and academic goals
There are many factors that influence the quality of one’s sleep, but nonetheless, a night of quality sleep is highly important. There have been multiple studies that show that when the body is sleep deprived, terrible effects may occur. According to the National Institute of Health, almost 70 million Americans suffer from a form or another of sleep disorders. These sleep disorders damage the health of the patient, in the long run, resulting in a series of conditions. Besides, the sufferer’s alertness levels decrease significantly. Some of the conditions associated with poor sleep are diabetes, stroke, depression, heart disease and other conditions with a fatal potential. Below are some of reasons and factors that contribute to sleep quality, according to experts.
The science of sleep
Certain factors influence the quality of our sleep enormously. Some are empirical pieces of evidence, others are proven by science and multiple studies in the field. Below are some of the most important factors that influence the way in which we sleep.
Your body;
Your sleeping environment;
Your mind.
Taking care of all the above coordinates will surely help you improve the quality of your nighttime sleep. Below we will teach you how to improve your sleep with some easy steps and adjustments.
Take care of your body
How you feel influences enormously the quality of your sleep. Many experts say that exercising is one of the simplest ways in which you can improve your sleep. Exercising reduces stress and anxiety and promotes a better mood. However, you should avoid rigorously exercise in the last 3 hours before going to bed. Apparently, people who regularly exercise have higher chances to fall asleep relatively fast. They also report feeling generally better than sedentary people.
The environment matters
If you think that a comfortable mattress and a comfortable pillow won’t make you fall asleep faster, you’re wrong. Your bedroom should be your sanctuary and you should treat it like one. Make sure to create the perfect environment for sleep. According to experts, you should set your temperature somewhere between 65- and 72-degrees Fahrenheit. Keep your bedroom as dark as possible when sleeping. And most importantly, invest in high-quality mattresses. Learn how can you get the best mattress for you and your own needs. It might sound funny, but the preferred sleeping position influences enormously what type of mattress you should purchase. Shop for a mattress manufactured from anti-allergenic materials. This will help you sleep better during those hot summer months. Research the local market and see which one of the mattresses available seem to fit your sleeping habits better. Memory foam mattresses seem to be market leaders for consumers worldwide.
Be consistent
When you look forward to improving your sleep patterns, you can always look forward to bringing some consistency into your life. Try to go to sleep at approximately the same hour every day. You should also wake up at the same hour every day, as well.
By line for Linda Anderson
I’m a writer and musician residing in Boise, ID in the United States, although I spent a small amount of time (about three years) living in the UK growing up, due to my father’s occupation. I graduated from the College of Idaho with a bachelor’s degree in Business and a focus in marketing in 2014.
Only a small number of students are able to pay for college education and the fees related to this type of post-secondary education like supplies, books, and tuition as well as living expenses. But, this doesn’t mean that young people that don’t have money to pay these expenses should avoid college education. On the contrary, they have a few options, including student loans that can help them.
So, a student loan is a special type of loan which is designed for students that need financial aid in order to access and use higher education. According to some sources, there are more than 44 million Americans that have student loans.
How do student loans work?
Before we start explaining how student loans work, it’s good to know that there are two basic types of loans – federal student loans and private student loans. Most students are choosing federal student loans because it’s easy to get one and come with low-interest rates and fair terms. They are funded with taxpayers’ money. On the other hand, private student loans are issued by credit unions, banks, colleges, universities, and state agencies. Most banks have special student loan programs. In most cases, students opt for this solution when they are not eligible for federal student loans and when they need more money.
So, federal and private loans designed for students come with different characteristics, For instance, federal loans have fixed pre-determined interest rates while private student loans have variable or fixed interest rates. Private loans have specific repayment terms set by the financial institution.
Where to find the best student loans?
With so many interesting options out there, it’s quite logical to ask a question like this. The answer depends on a few different things, but generally speaking, there are a few options that have proven to be useful to thousands of students. In order to find the best student loans, you will have to conduct in-depth research with the help of the Internet. You can also use the experience of other students and ask your friends and family.
If you want to speed up things a little bit, then you can also use a comparison website like Hot5.com. This is a website where visitors can read reviews and descriptions of the best student loans written by experts in this field. The best student loan in 2019 may be just a few clicks away when you are using websites like this.
Why take a student loan?
It turns out that there is more than one good reason why students should consider taking student loans. We will use this basic guide to highlight a few of them.
You can get access to the college you’ve always wanted to enroll in
First and foremost, as you probably know, some colleges are more expensive than others. There are situations when students can join some colleges without getting a student loan, but they want to join another one even though they don’t have enough money. This is where student loans come into play. Some people may say that this is an expense that you can avoid, but don’t forget that you are investing in your future. In other words, this is a type of debt that pays off. In many cases, you can witness this right after you’ve finished college and you have a few offers for decent jobs.
Making a better credit score
Loans are not made just for students. In fact, there are many other types of loans and most people have at least one other type of loan in their lifetime. So, it’s a smart move to start building your credit score as early as possible. By taking a student loan, you will get a chance like this. Of course, you will have to pay the monthly installments on a regular basis, but this won’t be a problem for most students because the interest rates are low and there’s enough time to cover these installments.
Great repayment benefits
Due to the nature of student loans, many of them come with great repayment benefits. In most cases, these repayment benefits are associated with federal student loans, but it’s possible to find benefits like this in private student loans too. Basically, as a student, you may have a chance to postpone your payments for a month or two or even for a longer period of time. In some cases, you can also lower the amount of the monthly payment. Finally, there are situations when students were able to remove their debt. All these things make student loans a great tool in the hands of students.
Mistakes to avoid
In order to feel all the benefits of taking student loans and to avoid unpleasant experiences, you have to stay away from a few common mistakes. The following is a short list of mistakes to avoid.
Not reading the loan terms
You should never sign a student loan or any type of loan if you don’t understand how the loan works. In other words, you must be aware of all the loan terms before signing for a loan like this. Take some time and analyze the most important parts of the agreement like the repayment terms, a potential grace period, the penalties for late repayment, the type of interest rates (fixed or variable) etc.
Don’t borrow more than you need
Sometimes, you can borrow more than you actually need, but this is usually a bad decision. You need to be focused on getting the exact amount of money that you need to finish education. You can find extra funds by getting a job.
Not paying more when possible
If you want to save money, it is the best idea to pay more than you are asked for once you get the student loan. So, there’s no need for someone to remind you that you can pay more – you should do this on your own. In order to do this, you can use a tax refund, make interest payments even when you have not graduated yet and more.
Sylvia Kohl is an IT teacher with more than 8 years of professional experience. Her main spheres of interest are e-education and she convinced that learning process doesn’t stop after years in school and university.
Budget cuts, high tuition, public disillusion have slowed progress while employers struggle to find skilled workers
by JON MARCUS, Hechinger Report excerpt
January 14, 2019
President Barack Obama delivers a speech at Macomb County Community College July 14, 2009 in Warren, Michigan. Obama set a goal of increasing the proportion of the population with degrees and certificates, and returning the nation to first in the world in this measure by next year. A decade later, progress has been slow. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
When then-President Barack Obama stood before a friendly and enthusiastic crowd at Macomb Community College, near Detroit, 10 years ago this year, the goals he set out were — as the president himself said — historic.
Within a decade, he said on that day in 2009, community colleges like Macomb would collectively boost their number of graduates by five million. That would help return the United States to first in the world in the proportion of its population with the credentials needed to sustain an economy increasingly dependent on highly educated workers.
“Time and again, when we placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result,” Obama said in announcing his American Graduation Initiative
Now it’s 2019, and after federal and state budget cuts, spiraling tuition, political distraction and increasing public skepticism about the value of a higher education, the nation is far behind schedule in realizing this goal.
Obama called for raising to 60 percent the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees or certificates by next year; that number has instead crawled from about 39 percent to just under 48 percent. At this rate, the target won’t be met until at least 2041, the research arm of the nonprofit Educational Testing Service, or ETS, predicts.
And the United States remains stubbornly in 13th place in the world in the proportion of its 25- to 34-year-olds with degrees, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, behind South Korea, Canada, Japan, Russia, Ireland, Lithuania, Norway and other countries.
Related: How failing to get more Hispanics to college could drag down all Americans’ income
The repercussions of this could be as enormous as they have been overlooked, said Ted Mitchell, who was Obama’s undersecretary of education overseeing higher education.
“The polar icecap we’re seeing melting in higher education is right in front of us,” said Mitchell, who now is president of the largest national association of colleges and universities, the American Council on Education, and who compared the situation to the slow-moving impacts of changes in environmental policies.
“The real downside comes in 10 years or 20 years, when this incredible human capital engine that has fueled our economy over the last century starts to sputter,” he said.
It might not even take that long. Forty-six percent of American employers already can’t find the workers they need, according to ManpowerGroup. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says this is keeping 40 percent of businesses from taking on more work.
“That suggests that this is hindering growth,” said Cheryl Oldham, the chamber’s vice president of education policy and the former acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education in the George W. Bush administration, who remembers efforts to raise the proportion of Americans with degrees even before Obama tried to do it.
“We make a big announcement, we make a promise, then we move onto something else,” Oldham said.
The Trump Administration Department of Education did not respond to repeated requests to discuss this topic, and references to the American Graduation Initiative have been deleted from the White House website.
To produce more graduates, colleges first need students. But the number of students on the path to degrees is not up. It’s down.
Community colleges, which were the focus of the American Graduation Initiative, have in the last 10 years lost nearly 20 percent of their enrollment, the U.S. Department of Education reports. At Macomb Community College, Obama’s backdrop for his announcement, the number has students has fallen by more than 10 percent, state and college figures show.
Higher education institutions of all kinds have two million fewer students now than they did in 2009.
That’s partly because the number of 18- to 24-year-olds who comprise traditional college students is declining, even as an improving economy has drawn more people straight into the job market, without stopping to get degrees.
Related: New data show some colleges are definitively unaffordable for many
But federal and state budget cuts for higher education also haven’t matched the aspirations of ambitious targets like Obama’s; most of the $12 billion he promised to help community colleges fell through, and states are spending an inflation-adjusted $7 billion less on public universities and colleges than they did in 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That’s a cut of 16 percent, on average, pushing up tuition faster than family incomes,
When individuals first enrol in college or university, it is a whirlwind of excitement, chaos, and uncertainty. The next three to four (if not more) years of one’s life are dictated largely by their dedication and ongoing efforts in their academic successes. Especially when one moves away from home to go to the school they want to go to, balancing everything can be one giant learning curve. Students not only have to maintain their studies, but many of them work as well, because the truth is that modern life (yes, even for students) is too expensive not to be working. It is a tough road to navigate, even to walk sometimes. The single best piece of advice that any higher education student will ever get is to treat their higher education experience like a course in itself.
Forging Lifelong Learning and Networks
Of course, the primary goal of higher education is to forge students into professional experts in their field, but more than that, higher education itself serves as the ultimate course. In what, you ask? Life after graduation, of course. The thing about college and/or university is that the students that make it through the rounds successfully are often the very same individuals who have no idea what their next step is after graduation. There is not necessarily anything wrong with this. What is important, however, is that students are made aware that they can – and should – use their time at college or university to build connections and begin to establish a reputation in their field.
Networking in university is much easier than when you have entered the workforce as people are generally more receptive towards students – relating to when they were once a student themselves. Doors open more readily and opportunities arise out of simple conversations. Every new contact which is added to one’s address book, brings with him a library of information, knowledge and experience. Take advantage of this. Getting to know the industry and its players as best you can, from all walks of life. As the saying goes: Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
Furthermore, there is a slew of community clubs one can benefit from whilst in university: getting involved in cardinal service will not only build one’s repertoire and resume, it will also let you meet like minded people and build connections. From ladies in engineering to accessible education, there are over 600 student clubs at Stanford University that one may take advantage of. Even when you’ve graduated, you are also welcome to make use of the many alumni clubs out there and work them to your advantage.
Attaining Financial Independence
When it comes to the difficulties of savings, being a student can be an incredible way to adapt to the learning curve. Financial stability and security is something that is often difficult for many people to achieve, but it does not have to be. Being a student allows for the chance to study and work at the same time, effectively turning individuals into more driven, more responsible people. Students can save money while achieving independence, both skills that are especially handy after graduation. The reality is that students are often so busy, or so stretched for both money and time, that they are forced into a state of financial accountability. This is nothing but a good thing. Learned and practiced responsibility in all areas of life better prepares students for life in their fields come graduation.
A Final Note
Through financial accountability and academic responsibility, students who take both aspects of life in higher education seriously most often end up in the most advantageous of positions when it is time for them to pursue their careers. Through networking, financial independence, and academic success, students go on to become more well-rounded individuals. The single best piece of advice that anyone will give you as a student is to approach college or university as if it were a course in the evolution of life. In doing this, not only will students gain a stronger understanding of their own capabilities, but they will forge a substantial knowledge of how to navigate the next step in their lives – their career.
Annabel Monaghan is a writer with a passion for education and edtech. She writes education and career articles for The College Puzzle with the aim of providing useful information for students and young professionals. If you have any questions, please feel free to email her at annabelmonaghanwriter@gmail.com.
Have you just been accepted to college, or you’re still considering whether to apply to perhaps take a different route, such as entering the workforce right out of high school? There are many options open to you right now. Maybe you need time to discover your interests, and figure things out. Maybe adventure appeals to you.
After twelve years of schooling, you might just need a break- some time to yourself, to consider what you really want out of life, and what direction you want to go in. Now’s the time to “find yourself”, as they say. Consider your options. I recommend a gap year travel program. It can be a very formative, inspiring, and instructive experience for young people.
Study Abroad
Do you want more work experience? Do you want to spend time abroad, discovering the world? A gap year program lets you go abroad, where you can live in a different culture, live and work among locals, socialize, eat the food, learn the language, and see the sights. Going abroad is a process, it requires applying and planning out which program you would like to participate in. It also means finding funding, sometimes getting a visa, and buying plane tickets. Then pack your bags and consider yourself a global citizen. Sometimes being abroad is a hard adjustment, especially if you do not speak the language or know the people. Stay open-minded and make sure that you stay engaged. By meeting new people and taking language courses, you’ll soon adapt. And afterwards, you’ll have a stronger sense of yourself and your abilities, which is invaluable at school, work, and in life in general. You’ll find that it is a very marketable trait, and potential employers or college admissions officers will notice that you had the initiative and wherewithal to go out into the world and explore for yourself. There are all sorts of programs to study abroad, and they range in length from a few weeks to even a year or two. Most people go for a couple months, however.
Gap Years While in College
If you have already started college, you can still consider a gap year program. Many schools offer programs or partner with other programs and offer credit to students who complete them. Many schools also allow for leaves of absence for these sorts of programs. Or you can always go abroad during summer or winter break, depending on your semester schedule.
Work Experience
Are you looking for something more than just time away? You might enjoy not only studying in a foreign country, but also gaining valuable work experience. Consider getting a volunteer position or internship abroad. This is excellent resume material, and great experience. When you intern abroad, take initiative and explore your career interests. Propose new ideas and get involved with your own research as well. Make yourself useful to the organization, and always be polite and inquisitive. Try to establish relationships with your supervisor. Think of them as your mentor. In the future, they may furnish recommendations for college, or for other programs and jobs.
Don’t forget to also explore the area, and spend time with new people. Don’t spend the whole time working! You’ll learn perhaps just as much by exploring the new country as through your work experience.
Future Confidence
It also gives you the confidence in future to travel and to consider future moves. It gives you the sort of daring to overcome future obstacles and take on future opportunities. You will also develop greater sensitivity towards different people, including people of different cultures. Your communication skills will be improved. You will be better also at living in different environments, and you will understand the effect of globalization. You also will have a lot of opportunities to expand your network and make connections in your future field. Even if you aren’t sure what that is yet, spending time abroad will help you develop perspective.
Mikkie is a freelance writer from Chicago. She has a passion for advanced learning, reading, and health and fitness. She is also a mother of two who loves sharing her ideas on education, learning, health, fitness and yoga. When she’s not writing, she’s chasing the little ones around or can be found at the local climbing gym or doing yoga.
Over the years there has been a change to the number of males graduating from college versus their female counterparts, and 2018 collefe grad were about 58% female and 43% male
Past studies show, boys face numerous problems when attending high school and graduating college and the trend looks to be on the rise.
Some of the difficulties found among boy students involve reading, writing, and standardized testing. There are other noticeable factors, as well, but we are not sure exactly what causes the male versus female college grad rate.
Boys may lack motivation to be in high school or to complete homework, they participate in criminal activity and violence, as well as, face school expulsion, or end up dropping out of school altogether.
When the time comes for boys, who are now young men, to go off to college, many end up choosing a different route.
Whether it is due to the reasons listed or not, more and more young men are choosing to opt out of gaining a college education.
Female students, on the other hand, are continuing to succeed in secondary schools, causing the number of female college graduates to outnumber that of males, and there is no true sign of this changing any time soon.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), show, in 1979, female students became the majority of students enrolled in post secondary schools, and for the past decade have accounted for approximately 58 percent.
Academic Preparation: Are Children College Ready?
Most parents believe when their child graduates from high school they are ready to move on to college, but this is not always the case.
In 2017, the Hechinger Report investigated forty-four states and found, a large number of public colleges report more than half a million of students, who enroll into their schools, are not ready for college-level work.
This is not only detrimental to the development and pocketbooks of many young students, their lack of preparedness for college is also taxing on government and college funds, costing billions of dollars of debt, each school year.
The numbers reveal there is a major problem with the education system, and that having a high school diploma does not automatically mean students are academically prepared for college.
The Era Of Technology: Is A College Diploma Still Relevant?
Today’s world is much different than it was ten years ago due to it being the era of technology.
People of all ages are definitely more tech-savvy and society’s dependence on various gadgets and devices has grown.
We live on a planet where Google has all the answers, Television shows make you an instant star, and where YouTube sensations exist– and none of these require individuals to be in possession of a college diploma.
Having a degree does not seem to hold the same value as it once did, which could be a sign to the start of the college diploma becoming irrelevant.
Along with technology, “experience” is replacing the need for secondary education. In fact, some employers accept it as “being” equivalent to having a college degree.
There is no doubt, some schools are experiencing a decline in the number of student enrollments, female vs. male attendees, academic preparedness, disruptive technology, and education relevancy, which all contribute to the decrease in the number of students graduating in America.
What does this say about where our future is headed, as it does lie in the hands of younger generations?
As we become more informed about how many young adults are not being formally educated, can we truly grasp the repercussions, which may come from this drastic academic change?
It is hard to say, but, in gaining this knowledge, we now have the ability to do something with it, and it requires us, as a society, to take action before it is too late.
For us to make a real difference in the education of our children, in raising the number of college graduates each year, and ultimately, improving the state of our future, the time for action starts now.
College students have been forced to be much more responsible toward their budgets in the past few years thanks to the increase in student loans and lack of campus jobs. While it might seem unnecessary to put together a budget to stick to at such a young age, the truth is that more and more university students have had to learn this skill earlier on. This can be useful when planning a year of study abroad or having extra cash for activities outside the classroom.
In fact, many expert cite having a budget as one of the best things young people can do in order to learn about properly managing their finances. “My simple budget gave me security, flexibility, and confidence while building mindful spending and other financial health skills that would pay dividends for the rest of my life,” writes Brett Whysel for Forbes.
While some knowledge students won’t take beyond their four years at university, having a clear idea of how much money they can spend each month is a skill that can follow them into their adulthood. Budgeting provides tools that can help students stay out of debt in the future, while teaching them what they can and cannot afford—especially if they graduate with a number of student loans. Since the cost of college tuition tends to rise every year, it is now more important than ever that young people have an idea of what the cost of their education will be and how they can afford payments once they are finished.
An article in Forbes states that a large amount of borrowers who have taken out loans for their college education have had trouble paying it back. In fact, up to 11% of former students end up defaulting on their payments. The article also comments that teaching budgeting at a younger age can often impart students the knowledge of how to handle larger payments in the future.
So how can you keep yourself from falling into the trap of defaulting on loans or finding yourself lacking funds during your semester or year abroad? Fortunately, there are some simple steps that you can take in order to prepare yourself for a life outside of school and the monthly payments you will have to pay when you are done.
Tracking what you spend is one of the simplest ways to acknowledge where your money is going. Once you have a general idea of what you spend each week on the necessities, such as groceries, transportation, and meals you might need to eat out, you can have a clearer idea of what you should put toward savings and fun. Even if you have some debts to pay, it is unrealistic to expect that you should not put any money away for the future or that you won’t be able to enjoy a night out with friends.
“It’s easy to spend money when you aren’t tracking your finances closely. Track every expense, even those paid in cash. There are now many banking and online auto save features that make it easier to have money deducted monthly to help you save,” mentions Nick Stamos in an article for Forbes.
Experts recommend that no matter what your financial situation is, if you can put away at least 10% of your income into savings, you are already ahead of most of your peers. Even if you are also paying back student loans, it is a good idea to continue to save for your future, as well. As you feel as though you are in a more comfortable financial position, you can start to add more each month. Regardless, contributing to your savings is an important part of budgeting that can be helpful to start learning early rather than to wait.
There are also a number of ways to keep track of what payments you have and which areas you can cut back on your budget. Software like a bitcoin wallet can be useful to track investments and savings, while even online payments like PayPal can be useful in showing you a list of transactions that have been completed. Being able to see where your money goes can be a useful feature and allow you to choose where you might be able to cut back on expenses. Several apps are also an option if you like having access to your finances in almost any location, and they can help you keep track of your basic payments.
Recent articles have commented that students do not have a grasp on basic finances, which can make transitioning from a school environment to a life with student loans much more difficult. However, budgeting allows young people to practice new skills with money before they have to make payments that will affect their lives in the future.
Byline – Anton Lucanus is the Director of Neliti. During his college years, he maintained a perfect GPA, was published in a top cancer journal, and received many of his country’s most prestigious undergraduate scholarships. Anton writes for The College Puzzle as a means to guide current students to achieve personal and academic goals
Alcohol has long been a part of college culture. In fact, federal health officials say more than 80 percent of college students drink. Of that 80 percent, about half say they binge drink. This can have a huge impact on the health, well-being, and academic success of college students. “Everybody’s drinking to get drunk,” Dr. Sharon Levy, a pediatrician and director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Boston Children’s Hospital tells NPR. “Kids tell me this is how they socialize with friends.”
The college experience differs for everyone. Though some students are in environments where alcohol and binge drinking come secondary to their studies and social activities, many students find themselves in environments that encourage drug and alcohol use. While this behavior is simply part of the fun for some, it’s detrimental for others in terms of their health and academic success.
Because of the growing problem with substance abuse at the college level, some students are finding that it’s necessary to stay sober in order to stay on the right path and remain focused on their studies. In order to help college students stay sober and gain the associated benefits, some universities are adopting programs designed to help their students stay sober.
The Sobering Statistics
The college party scene is not just a trope used in movies and television. In fact, there is plenty of truth to the prevalence of party culture on campus. College is a time of transition for many young people and is often one of their first steps into independence as adults. It’s no surprise then that many struggle with their newfound freedom.
One 2017 study showed that alcohol use in college students is higher than in their non-college peers. Despite an initial downward trend on cocaine use in college students, it increased in 2014 and remained high in 2015. Another study showed that there is a correlation between daily marijuana use and an increase in alcohol use. Both studies indicate that over time, there are cognitive detriments and consequences to the health of individual students.
Not only is drug and alcohol use common in college, it’s also dangerous. Risky behavior can be synonymous with substance abuse including drinking and driving and impulsive decision-making. The high frequency of substance abuse in college has also normalized substance abuse for many students. This has made it even more difficult to identify addiction issues. For some, the party culture is just one aspect of college life, but for others it can derail their success.
The Benefits of Sobriety in College
Staying sober in college may seem like an impossible reality for some students, but it’s very doable with the right resources and support, and there are multiple benfits to doing so. Staying sober in college has benefits that can help with academics, physical health, and long-term mental well-being.
Shifting focus from parties illicit substances to academics and studying will provide obvious benefits in terms of grades and participation. After all, college is not only important in terms of GPA and career options, but it’s also important in terms of personal growth and social surroundings. Staying sober in college can help in each of these areas and can create a pattern of positive behavior into adulthood.
Missing out on parties and hangouts may seem like too much to bare for the average college student in their late teens or early twenties, as typical college culture encourages partying and the use of substances. However, this isn’t’ necessarily how college has to be.
For those who are interested in sober living in college, there are a number of resources and tools available. First, students need to be able to find like minded peers who are in recovery or have made similar commitments to sobriety to use as a support system. Additionally, many colleges have programs and support systems that can help sober students can help students stay focused on academics, encourage a healthy lifestyle away from drugs and alcohol, and provide a way to find like-minded students who are also trying to stay sober.
What Universities Can Do to Help
In 2017, 5.3 million young adults needed treatment for substance abuse. One in six of those students was of the average college age. When college culture is synonymous with alcohol and drug use, it can mean that young people who have addiction issues may feel they need to decide between their schooling and their sobriety. However, universities who offer solutions to the substance abuse culture that many colleges are known for can make a big difference for the students who need to stay sober. They also help with preventing substance abuse problems for students who don’t have issues with addiction but still prefer to stay sober.
One solution to this problem is the growing number of sober dorms or sober housing options for students. Some universities offer substance abuse recovery programs that not only focus on sober housing options but also sober social events and trips to help students find the social circle that aids in their sober lifestyle. In addition to that, some universities offer addiction recovery and mental health services on campus. Talking with a counselor or social worker who is trained in substance abuse can help college students be more successful in their sobriety. Recovery coaching programs and Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings specifically for college students can also a big help in providing assistance on campus.
For a young college student who is just venturing out on their own, it can be easy to fall into the college party culture and get lost in it. Poor grades, suffering mental health, and issues with addiction can easily follow. This is why experiencing college as a sober student is the only way that many students can get through it. Unfortunately, the ever-present party scene may make is seem like staying sober is impossible. However, the universities who are offering resources for these students are making the impossible possible. No student should have to choose between higher education and sobriety.
Bio: Jori Hamilton is a writer from the Northwest who is passionate about education and social justice issues. You can follow her on Twitter @HamiltonJori
