College Student Behavior

College Student Behavior Every year there are statistics published stating the percentages of college students that fail or drop out of college. Research shows many different explanations as to why these events occur. During the first year of college a student may move away from home, takes on a significantly larger amount of school work, and all while trying to manage a social life and possibly a job as well. For some people this is a time where they will be facing more all at once than they ever have before. Whereas some people may stay home and attend community college, their stress levels are still increased but may not be as severe. I am the student that realized she was not ready to move from home to start college. After this year, I am ready to transfer to East Carolina University but it took a long thought process to get me to this point. I knew I was not ready to live on my own and would get caught up in the cliché college life and not work to my full potential so I decided community college was the best choice for me. On the other hand, there are students who do not go through this thought process. When one moves away from home and enters the world of college life they all have the image of the social life and yes, they may think they know how much work they will have to do but when it becomes “real life” it hits a lot harder than they imagine. Having friends that moved off say they love being away from parents but miss the things they use to do for them and that school work takes up almost every day and night. Night? Yes, night. During the day students are in class and may have a few moments of study time between classes but in my research I have found that most people will stay up all night just to finish papers, homework or just study for tests. When talking to college students almost every single one will say that they were not ready for what college presented them with. Stress becomes a major obstacle when dealing with college along with not getting enough sleep and not eating right. Staying up all night to study, especially around exam time, is one of the worst things college students can do. When they finally get to take the test they are far too tired to concentrate and do not do as well as they would if they had studied in time before and then gotten a good night sleep. When I asked, “why do you wait to study until the last minute?” I got the answer most would expect, “I don’t have enough time.” Too much of this behavior leads to the failing grades and drop outs that I mentioned earlier. Everything has a solution though correct? The cause of failing grades and drop outs is stress, and time management, so why not have a cause and effect solution? If we are not ready to leave home when it’s already too late and we are enrolled in a university then how can we prevent this? My notion is that high schools should better prepare their students for the college world. We are babied all through high school and although it was nice at the time, there was not benefit except for getting into a good college. But what is the point of getting into that first pick college if you do not know what it takes to stay in it? If students were more prepared in high school the overall effect would be that there would be a lower drop out and failing rate and more people wouldn’t be wasting their time and money.