Life On Campus - college life

Careers and Colleges, March, 2001 by Don Rauf

Coed dorms. Study groups at 4 a.m. Pitching in with community projects. Weekday parties in the student center. Courses via computer. Free foreign movies. Meetings with professors. Today's colleges are complex, highly active petri dishes of academic and social activity.

This fall, 1.8 million new high school graduates are expected to kick off their first year at college at both private and public institutions. That's an increase of about 16 percent from 10 years ago, according to the National Library of Education in Washington, DC. As more high school graduates head to campus, they can expect a rewarding but challenging whirlwind of experiences.

Today's institutions of higher learning provide a diverse cultural atmosphere. Although about 70 percent of the college-bound are white, increasingly students are from African-American, Asian-American, Latino, and other backgrounds. And these students are interacting outside of their ethnic groups. According to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which polled more than 63,000 undergraduates, more than 80 percent of freshmen report having serious conversations with students of a different race or ethnicity from their own.

While 30 years ago men dominated the student body, a recent report by the Center for the Study of Opportunity, in Washington, DC, shows that less than 45 percent of today's undergraduates are men. The American Council on Education (ACE) backs up the findings, but adds that the enrollment decline is predominantly among low-income and minority students.

"There is not a generalized education crisis among men," says Jacqueline King, director of ACE's Center for Policy Analysis. "However, there are pockets of real problems."

WHAT MAKES YOUR CLASSMATES TICK?

Your fellow classmates may be stressed out. A I record-breaking 30.2 percent of freshmen say they are "frequently overwhelmed" by all they have to do, according to an annual survey of 404,667 new college freshmen, conducted by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute.

"This is a reflection of an increasingly fast-paced society, made more so by computers and other media," says the survey's director, UCLA assistant education professor Linda J. Sax. "Students feel more competition; they're applying to more colleges than ever before; they're worried about having to work during college. That can be overwhelming."

Women tend to spend more time than men studying, doing volunteer work, participating in student organizations and tending to housework or child-care responsibilities. Men, on the other hand, spend more time than women exercising or playing sports, watching television, partying or playing video games.

Compared to a year ago, new undergraduates are not as interested in becoming "an authority," and "recognition from colleagues" ranked at an all-time low. In general, students care less about status, but more than 70 percent are interested in being very well-off financially and raising a family.

As far as personal habits, you can expect almost half of the fall class to be drinking beer at least occasionally, but only 10 percent are smokers. Freshmen today are more tolerant of gay rights--14 years ago, 50 percent of freshmen believed "it is important to have laws prohibiting homosexual relationships"; today that figure is down to 27 percent. The UCLA survey also shows a rise in freshman opposition to the death penalty--3l.2 percent say it should be abolished compared to 24.1 percent in 1998.

TODAY'S ACTIVE, TECHNO-SAVVY FRESHMAN

College students are very involved. Sixty-three percent of seniors participated in community service, according to the NSSE. Another study last year by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University found that almost 60 percent of all college students volunteered, while only about 16 percent joined a government, political, or issues-related organization. First-year students especially appear to be less interested in politics than ever before. UCLA's survey shows long-term decline in political interest among students.

Students may be more interested in their computers than anything else. The UCLA survey reports that 78.5 percent of first-year students regularly use a computer--that's up 15 percent over last year. Women, however, were half as likely as men to rate their computer skills as above average.

THE ACADEMIC CHALLENGE

Because college is first and foremost a learning experience, the NSSE was especially interested in the academic challenges presented to students. It found that the majority of students (91 percent) say they have at least "occasionally" worked harder than they thought they could to meet an instructor's standards. However, the survey knocked down a longstanding view that college students spend at least two hours studying outside of class for every one hour in class. For the average full-time student, that would be 30 hours per week. The reality is that almost half of the students polled are spending between 6 and 15 hours per week on out-of-class study.

Almost all students are raising their hands and "occasionally" asking questions in class. While men do more tutoring than women, women are more likely to discuss ideas from their studies outside of the classroom.