An Overview: How You Can Help
Student services professionals across campus have identified issues central to a student's first semester and first year. They tend to focus on similar themes:

Taking personal responsibility and making wise choices. An important theme that emerges is how new students handle the freedom and responsibility that comes with attending college.

• With nobody around to insist that they go to class and keep up with their course work, eat right, and get enough rest and exercise, students have to take charge of these things on their own. This can be a huge change for some students.
• When left on their own to decide if they should study or do something else, some students find it hard to make the mature choice.
• Students are also responsible for knowing how the University operates, what services exist to help them, and for taking the initiative to ask for the assistance they need to work through their concerns.

Time management is the foundation of success. Students need to learn how to study for college courses, and refine their techniques in note taking and reading comprehension. But a more fundamental issue is how to get the most out of the larger amount of unstructured time that makes up the typical day in college.

• The most successful students create a plan for organizing their time, have a system to remind themselves of important dates and assignments, and have the motivation and the focus to follow through and get things done on time.

Iowa is full of opportunities for growth. Another theme that emerges is that it takes time to adjust to the size of The University of Iowa and all it has to offer.

• There are literally hundreds of student organizations, intramural sports, student and residence hall government, theatre, dance, and music ensembles.
• There are more than 100 programs of study, and a vast array of opportunities to work with professors on research projects and get involved in academic pursuits outside the classroom.
• The range of opportunities is extensive, and while it can be invigorating and exciting to face so many choices, it can also leave some students feeling overwhelmed about their choice of major and possible career path.

Advice for parents
The advice falls into several common themes:

• Communicate, communicate, communicate! Perhaps the most important of these is communication with your child. There is an expectation on the part of some families that the University should look out for the welfare of their students to a much greater degree than is possible given the staffing and resources of the institution.
  • While there is a support structure in place to assist students, it is not possible to see to it that they are going to class, studying enough, and making mature decisions about such things as alcohol use.
  • There is no substitute for having a series of open, honest discussions with your child before he or she leaves for college about a number of vital topics: setting goals and identifying priorities; alcohol and drug use; budgeting time and money; locating University resources; etc.
  • Talk about your expectations in these areas, listen to what your student has to say, and be clear about your willingness to be supportive in the future.

• Be a connection to the University for your student…and be a sounding board. Another theme that emerges in the advice from student affairs professionals is the role you can play in helping your child brainstorm solutions to common problems.
  • In the emotion of the moment, your student may not remember the kinds of offices and individuals that are on campus to help him or her, but you can remind your student of these services, and encourage your student to seek them out.
  • You can be an objective, clear-headed voice when it comes to helping your child identify areas of behavior change, and in working through possible solutions to difficulties that may occur.
  • In this manner you can form the three-way partnership between the University, your student, and yourselves that is so important to your student’s future success.

• Be a friend to your student. At the same time, it will be important to watch the manner in which you make suggestions, provide encouragement and support, and express your ideas to your student.
  • With the amount of responsibility that is now on his or her shoulders (and the perceived pressure that goes with it), it works much better to speak to your child as a supportive mentor and friend rather than someone who is always telling him or her exactly what to do and how to act.
  • Your child will want to know that your love and support is unconditional, and that you understand what he or she is going through.
  • Too much telling rather than sharing or suggesting can send the wrong message, and your student may tune you out, and feel as though he or she cannot get the kind of support needed when things are going poorly.

• Letting go can be the hardest thing to do! A final thread that emerges from the advice of University staff and faculty is that you need to take a step back and let your student assume responsibility for his or her own life.
  • It can be very uncomfortable to let go and allow your child to make his or her own decisions and choices, especially if you feel these decisions are not in your student’s best interests.
  • It can be even harder to watch your student have to work through the consequences of poor decision-making that may have far-reaching consequences.
  • In the end, however, students will learn far more from dealing with their own problems than they will if they don’t have to face the consequences of their own behavior.

• Check out our list of Recommended Reading material.