Here are a few crumbs of college knowledge for the first weekend in October.
- As the leaves begin to turn and the nights get decidedly cooler, we are moving into the height of parent/family weekend season at colleges across the US. If you’re visiting your first-year student on campus for the first time since the start of the year, my advice is to be cautious not to over-plan or be too rigid in your approach to the weekend’s activities. For sure, you should go ahead and make a dinner reservation if you are set on going to a particular restaurant or worried about the crowds on a busy weekend. But be prepared to take your cues from your student on how to spend most of your time with them. He may want you to join up with a number of his friends (and their families) for meals, the soccer game, or an a cappella concert. None of those things may be what you had in mind. But even if it’s not your thing, try to go along. Your student is trying to invite you into her life at college so you should suck it up and do what she wants. Conversely, you may want to bust out your new “College” hoodie and head to the football game, but your student suggests a walk in the campus arboretum or getting lunch off campus. There will be plenty of football games. If your student wants to spend alone time with you, make sure you pay attention and make it happen. You’ll find that there are lots of ways to enjoy parent/family weekend and what really matters is the time with your student.
- Here’s a news flash: no college student ever objected to getting a care package from home some time around the middle of the semester. And, if you’re not exactly the bake homemade cookies and send them off to college kind of person, if you ask around you will likely find that there are a variety of services offered through – or referred by – the college your child attends that will do the baking and delivering for you at a very reasonable price. Aside from scoring major points with your child, a box of cookies or brownies can help break the ice if s/he is shy and having some trouble connecting with people in the dorm. And if sweets aren’t your kid’s thing, a handwritten note or card is always a welcome pick-me-up. Texts and phone calls and email messages are fine. But a card or care package is a more tangible piece of you and of home than anything that pings, jingles, or buzzes onto a smartphone.
- There is an excellent (short) piece on teen/adolescent brain development by a neurology professor from UPenn named Dr. Fances Jensen that offers helpful insight into understanding high school and college student behavior. Dr. Jensen’s article is accessible and easy to understand for those of us who are not literally brain surgeons. In addition to explaining the salient issues, she offers some excellent suggestions on ways that parents and advisors can help coach and support students at this crucial stage in their personal development. It’s well worth the time to check this one out.
- This is about the time of year when many second year college students start to experience what is commonly referred to as “sophomore slump.” For what it’s worth, in my experience students tend to experience first-year, junior, and senior slumps at pretty much the same rate as sophomores do which is why I prefer to call it by its other name: “the human condition.” That said, there are aspects of the second year of college that are unique and challenging in their own ways.
For many students, the first-year is an intense and intimate experience. First-years are all in the same boat and seek out and latch on to acceptance and friendships that are crucial to helping them negotiate what can otherwise be a profoundly lonely and scary transition to life in a new place. And those connections mean a lot as a result. But when students return for the sophomore year the residential communities they relied on have almost always been blown up, with friends being scattered far and wide across campus. On top of that, after spending a summer with long-time high school friends many students realize that they don’t have as much in common with some of their first-year college friends as they had initially thought. So, they often feel somewhat isolated geographically, and their social circles and friend groups may be in a state of flux. Add to that the hard reality that college is no longer a shiny new experience and the academic work tends to get more demanding, and you have a pretty good recipe for feeling a bit off. It’s a good time to remind students about support resources on campus and/or to encourage them to get involved in one or two new and different activities.
The truth is that life doesn’t stop happening when students go to college. Like the rest of us, college students have good times and more challenging times. And part of college – regardless of whether one is a first-year, sophomore, junior, or senior – is learning how to work through the challenging times when they hit. (Which is all the more reason why parents and advisors should heed the advice Dr. Jensen offers in the piece linked above.) Our job as parents and friends and advisors is to pay attention, provide support, reassure them that they are up to whatever challenges they face, and tell them that we love them.
- Regular readers of My College Wisdom know that I believe preparing students to be thoughtful and engaged citizens is an essential component of the college experience. As such, it is worth reminding people that it is an election year – as if you could have erased this bizarre (depressing, dreadful, icky?) election cycle from your mind if you wanted. Bizarre though this year’s election may be, college students should be active participants in our democracy and therefore it is important that they register to vote. If they have not already done so, students need either to request an absentee ballot from their hometown or register to vote in the city/town/state where they go to college.
Thinking about this election is another good reason to send a care package. Or just eat a few chocolate chip cookies. Which is what I’m going to do now. Have a great weekend.
