Course eases transition to college

Nick Naber, left, Barb Johnson, and Ashley Dietsch, first-year students in The College Transition, look up information under the guidance of instructor Brian Corkery during a visit to the Main Library's Information Arcade. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

“For $50,000, would you eat a bowl of live crickets?”

Susan Felker poses questions like that one at the beginning of each class to get the often anxious, tired, and stressed-out first-year students laughing and chatting comfortably. Once she has them hooked, they get down to the nitty-gritty.

“Where do I go to find out about student loans?”

“How do I get along with my roommate?”

“What amount of study time should I spend on each course?”

These are among the many questions Felker hopes her students learn answers to after taking her class.

“How can I be successful at Iowa and in my life?”

That may be the real $50,000 question—the most crucial one posed by students and addressed by Felker and 23 other University staff members who serve as instructors of a new, first-year-student course called The College Transition.

About 480 students participated this semester in the 12-week, two-credit-hour course devoted to the joys and angst of being new to the higher-education experience. The course, under the direction of the provost’s office, developed from a task force on student retention and was a pilot program in fall 2001. It is designed to introduce students to the University and help them feel comfortable in their new environment.

Felker, director of the undergraduate program for the Tippie College of Business, compares students’ first days at the University to new employees’ first days at a large company.

“When people go to work for a large organization, they usually complete an intensive training program to help them learn and adapt to the organization. Students typically don’t get a lot of extra, long-term orientation and training about how to be successful at the University,” Felker says. “In an organization as large as The University of Iowa, with more than 29,000 students and hundreds of programs, activities, and opportunities, there’s so much to do and think about. It can be overwhelming.

“This class serves as a structured guide to those programs and services and also helps students to form positive habits and skills for success. Exploring and fine tuning personal responsibility, self-motivation, and interdependence are important areas to master in order to be a successful student.”

Students examine the academic culture, exploring what it means to be in college and learning the ways to be successful. Through interactive exercises and assignments—from a campus scavenger hunt and journal writing to interviewing professors and keeping logs on time management and personal expenditures—classes discuss a range of topics. They include transition to college life (whether handling roommate disputes, homesickness, or alcohol issues), goal-setting, decision-making, study skills, campus resources, and diversity.

Students tour and learn about the resources in the Career Center and the Main Library. They also make new friends, build self-confidence, and learn to more boldly express themselves as individuals.

“I want the students to hold themselves to personal excellence. I want them to learn to work to be their own best critic and have the highest standards for themselves,” says Julie Claus, undergraduate academic adviser and course instructor, explaining what she hopes students gain from taking the course. “And I want them to know themselves well so when they’re looking at majors and careers, they’ll find a good fit for what they truly want in life.”

Andy Cinoman, assistant director of admissions, and Brian Corkery, assistant director of the Academic Advising Center, helped develop Iowa’s transition curriculum and serve as co-coordinators of the program. Each teaches a section. Cinoman taught similar courses when he worked at universities in Ohio.

Among the other instructors are Lola Lopes, associate provost for undergraduate education and longtime advocate of efforts to develop the course; Emil Rinderspacher, senior associate director of admissions; Pat Folsom, director of the Academic Advising Center; and other representatives from student services areas, such as the Career Center, the Office of Student Financial Aid, and the University Counseling Service.

These instructors have widely diverse backgrounds and training, yet one common thread: keen interest in attracting bright students to campus and keeping them here for four productive years.

“We’re helping students with academic issues, learning how to make decisions, dealing with this new freedom and independence, figuring out what’s expected of them,” Cinoman says. “We want to give them the skills and understanding to be successful and have fun, too, in college. We’re trying to give them the stuff no one else is telling them. We’re giving them the mortar between the bricks that holds it all together.”

And while the students are learning, the instructors are, too, says Cinoman, noting that the student services staff appreciate the additional contact with students who offer valuable feedback. As the students read, keep journals, and talk about all the challenges in their lives, the advisers and educators get a better understanding of how students have difficulties and how to help them succeed.

“We’ve gained a whole new appreciation for the unique pressures college students are under. We can use the information to better serve them,” he says.

The class is part of a long-range plan developed by University officials to increase the opportunities first-year students have for small-group interaction. Other opportunities include learning communities and first-year seminars.

Organizers expect the course to continue growing and evolving; it eventually may be offered to transfer students or to first-year students entering in the spring. In the future, it may be offered to specialized groups, including students who have similar plans of study (much like learning-community living in the residence halls).

Val Garr, program assistant for Opportunity at Iowa, is accustomed to seeing students get excited about going to college during the recruitment phase, while they’re still in high school. Teaching this first-year course, though, allows her to see a significant change in their awareness.

“You see that they’re realizing, ‘Wow, the honeymoon’s over.’ They’re dealing with the nuts and bolts of what it truly means to be a college student here at Iowa,” she says. “Beyond all the friends and football games and fun, there really is work to be done. It’s a personal responsibility transition.”

Sometimes, instructors struggle with how to get through to students and make them understand the importance and value of what they’re learning in the class. They work to subtly weave reminders into every lesson and discussion.

Even if students don’t get it right away, Garr expects they will someday.

“I’m a firm believer that if you throw out the information that’s important now, then somewhere down the road there’s going to be that light-bulb moment when they’re going to understand the significance of what we did.

“That’s the beauty of being a lifelong learner.”

Article by Amy Schoon