College Knowledge: 101 Tips

The first year of college is an exhilarating experience. It is a year when the rush of adrenaline alone is enough to carry a student forward on most days. Time moves in the extreme, as the excitement of much greater freedom and independence, stimulating courses, and new friends makes everything speed by.

It is critical that students come to college intellectually and emotionally prepared for the academic and social experience that awaits them. College is a qualitatively different experience than high school, and students’ expectations need to be set appropriately. The transition from high school to college is so significant that it can be difficult for most without some preparation. The most successful college students I have known have modeled the advice that follows in this book.

I encourage students reading this book who will be entering college or who are already in their first year of college to carry these ideas with you to help insure that your transition goes well. Read the tips, digest them, and keep them close by for the many moments when you may need some direction and support. Then brace yourself for the ride of a lifetime—the first year of college.

Every tip and vignette in this book has for me brought up memories of the many wonderful students I have taught and counseled throughout my career. Each tip and vignette reflects a composite of enlightening experiences and conversations with multiple students with whom I have worked. It has made the writing of this book very special in a way that is quite different from other books I have authored and edited.

I feel so fortunate, particularly as a first-generation college student, to have pursued a profession and an avocation that have enabled me to study social scientific theory about K–12 and higher education; intergroup relations across race, ethnicity, and religion; social stratification; civic engagement and community life; and social change. All the while, I have had the opportunity to put theory into practice, working directly with thousands of intellectually creative, dynamic, and caring students.

In recent years I have become increasingly committed to efforts to bring intellectual scholarship to the public domain. Too often, what we know, publish, discuss, and reward in the academy never leaves our small world. I applaud the University of Michigan Press for adopting this book and hope that it will inspire more of my colleagues in higher education to reach out to the public. This book, while clearly written for a more popular audience, is still rooted in substantive academic scholarship and extensive practice in the field.

I have been in one or another teaching role since I was about fifteen years old. Along this journey, I have been a day-care, nursery school, and elementary school teacher’s assistant at alternative and traditional schools both here in the United States and in the British Infant Schools. I have taught and tutored secondary school students, and I received a secondary school teaching certificate in Massachusetts. I taught military officers for college credit at Alameda Naval Base and taught basic English and math skills at a business school in Richmond, California. I have taught graduate students and served on dissertation committees. I have led numerous seminars, consultations, and workshops for faculty from small and large, private and public, urban and rural, regional and elite colleges and universities. I have been very active in national organizations devoted to higher education and the improvement of undergraduate education.

I have spent most of my career working in the area of undergraduate education. Subsequent to my own education at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of California at Berkeley, I have been a professor, dean, and vice president for academic affairs and student affairs. In those various roles, I have been involved in almost all aspects of undergraduate education at one time or another, from curriculum committees to diversity and undergraduate initiatives to advisory boards on student life. I have both written about and developed initiatives on learning communities, first-year seminars, and intergroup dialogues, among many other topics. I have written extensively about many aspects of higher education and worked closely with inspiring colleagues across the nation who have dedicated their lives to improving undergraduate education in the United States.

Much of my time, commitment, and effort, however, have gone to working directly with undergraduate students, as their teacher, advisor, program director, mentor, and friend. I have benefited enormously from my relationships with my students, growing and learning from each outstanding individual I have met. I hope this book in some small way expresses my gratitude for all that they have given to me.