Practical Advice to Incoming College Students
Incoming college students are often a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, and fear.
That’s understandable.
To help quiet first-year jitters, we present an open letter to first-year college students written by Professor Kim Pearson of the College of New Jersey.
A College Professor’s Advice to Incoming College Students
August 13, 2019
Dear College Student,
First, congratulations on embarking on a great adventure. Whether you are just out of high school or you are starting college later in life, you are beginning an endeavor that can open up opportunities that you had not envisioned for yourself and your families. It certainly did that for me.
No doubt, you are anxious about how to make the most of this experience. You are getting a lot of advice – probably too much to take in at one time. I don’t want to pile on, but I do have some perspective, having worked with students for the last 30 years, as well as having experience in the corporate and health care sectors. Some of these tips are things I found personally helpful, and others are things that I’ve learned from some of the highly capable students with whom I’ve had the honor of working. Many are things I wish I had known when I was an undergraduate
perspective. It doesn’t hurt to know a little bit about a lot of things. It offers the opportunity to engage in conversations that you would otherwise feel excluded from.
Independence, the Civil War, the expansion of the United States to its present boundaries, the world wars, and the civil rights movement to the present. American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.