Post By: COYD Staff
Today, we start the conversation on the Top 6 most common obstacles a college freshmen faces during their first year of college. It is important to identify and understand them before you step foot onto your new college campus. The summer is a good time to equip yourselves with the skills to overcome these obstacles. Below is the list of the Top 6 obstacles. For the next two weeks, we will be discussing how you can utilize this summer to prepare for these obstacles so that you can maximize your college experience.
1. Time Management
As you all know, your parents will not follow you to college. College is probably the first time you will have complete freedom to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do them. This may sound great but a few weeks in, you’ll realize that your parents had a big part in making sure you accomplished everything you needed to do during your high school career.
2. Roommate compatibility
There’s a common saying “A messy house = messy mind”. Messiness doesn’t only refer to the level of cleanliness. Messiness also refers to your relationship with your roommate. Studies show that a bad roommate relationship can not only affect your level of happiness but also your academic success.
3. Academic challenge
Most students are not prepared for the rigors of college academics. Some high schools have not equipped their graduates to study at a collegiate level. This week we will discuss how a student who might have attended one of these high schools can catch up so that their academic transition won’t be too painful.
4. Safety – physical and health
Some students come from more dangerous environments than their college environment, others come from safer environments. If you are in the latter group, you should do research about your college campus and find out the biggest safety concerns on your campus. Do not be naive to think that all college campuses are safe. Students should not only think about their physical safety but they should also be aware of their health safety. The biggest health concerns in college are STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases), depression, stress, substance abuse, and eating disorders.
5. Managing Finances
You have heard of college students graduating college with $10,000 of credit card debt! That’s credit card debt alone, not including student loans that need to be repaid. There are credit companies out there who specifically target students because they know that college students are big spenders. In 2008, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) created the “Truth About Credit” campaign to educate college students about the aggressive tactics creditors used to market their cards. These companies used free gifts such as T-shirts, food, “stress balls” to lure students into filling out a credit-card application. Many of these offers have enticing low-to-zero introductory interest rates that spike to as much as 20 percent once the promotional period ends. Does this sound familiar? Can I say the housing market crash? Make sure to educate yourself on credit cards before you sign up for any credit card applications. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
6. Basic living skills
If you’ve never cooked a meal or done a load of laundry, you need to start practicing this summer. You don’t want Home Economics 101 to take up too much of your time your first semester.
Tomorrow, we will discuss Obstacle #1: Time Management and how you can develop time management skills during the summer so you are ready to go when you start your first day of class.
