April 8

Freshman Survey

• Students are becoming more aware and focused on their futures.
• They want to have a higher income and economic security with their degree.
• Getting a college degree means earning a good living.
• College isn't just about gaining an appreciation of ideas; it's about the stability of students' futures.
• Proximity to home is a big factor for students when choosing which college to attend.
• As first-year students grow more confident in their intellect and leadership ability, they become less secure in the physical and emotional health.
• The educational degree of the parents of a student reflect on the student's academic achievements. Abou 20% of incoming freshman are first generation college students.
• The students considered proximity to home a key factor in deciding where to enroll and were more likely than their peers to pick a college where their parents wanted them to go.

Understanding Generational Differences

• Peer personality is the generational persona recognized and determined by age, location, shared beliefs, behavior, and perceived membership in a common generation.
• Baby boomers, generation X, and the millennials are the three most prevalent generations in businesses.
• Baby boomers are idealistic and work driven, generation Xers workers are fiercly independent and try to equally balance work and life, and millennials are the most confident.
• The three main areas where the generations differ are work ethic, managing change, and perception of organizational hierarchy.
• Boomers are skeptical of technology in the business world, as they see good work ethic as an 8-6 work day.
• Xers and millennials are result oriented, where the method of work does not matter.
• Baby boomers highly value face-to-face communication, where Xers will use whatever form of communication is easiest and millennials will use means of technology to do the talking for them.
• Baby boomers require little feedback, while Xers and millennials yearn for specific instructions and feedback.
• More research needs to be done about understanding the motivators of generation Z (the "me" generation) to understand their role in the workplace.

First Year Students In Perspective

• First year students are shown as having a less than flattering assessment of their intellectual skills, motivation, and ability to negotiate the complexities of an academic landscape.
• The American Freshman Project reported that the majority of incoming students decide to go to college for all the right reasons.
• Some people argue that students are not as prepared for college and higher education as they should be, due to the lack of challenges given to them by their high school.
• There is no real transition between high school and college, only a stopping and starting.
• One of the biggest causes of anxiety among new, first year students is the amount of studying they believe they will need to pass a class.
• Encouraging six hours a week per course, development of higher-intellectual skills, and development skills to sustain lifelong learning are the essentials tiers to a successful first year.
• There have been marked changes between the ratio of traditional and nontraditional students, traditional meaning attending a 4-year university right after high school graduation, and nontraditional meaning delaying entrance to a college or university right after high school graduation to gain employment.
• First year students and campuses are becoming more socially, racially, and economically diverse.
• The act of balancing new friends, new surrounding and new classes creates  considerable strain on first-year students.
• The two main causes of anxiety among first-year students are the desire to fit in to their new environment and the desire to go back to their old life.
• To provide the appropriate challenges and lessons to new first-year students, we need to understand their intellectual development .

I thought class went well today with our first presenters. I felt that the ice breakers were a fun way to learn everyone's names and bond over "common ground." I enjoyed the videos that Kat showed us in class as well. Overall, I thought their presentation went smoothly and efficiently and covered all the material from the readings.