To Party or Not to Party?

To Party or Not to Party?

It has happened to just about every college student at one point or another. There he is, sitting at his desk working on an assignment due the next morning, when he gets a phone call; "Dude, there's a party over at John's house. You up for it?" It's only 9:00 pm; there should be plenty of time to finish once he gets back. After all, how late can it possibly last? So you go, have some drinks and have a great time with your friends. Before you know it, you look down at your watch and discover it's four in the morning! You rush back to your room to finish your paper only to fall asleep on your keyboard before you've even started. Time has slipped away because you didn't know how to manage your time, how to balance your play time with your work time.

Don't feel bad, most students don't understand the concept of time management. This is especially a problem for first-year students fresh out of high school. They are finally away from home, out from under their parents' control, and free to do whatever they please. The attendance office isn't calling home whenever they miss a class so it's not such a big deal. All that matters is the end result; your GPA. Many college students deal with their new found liberation in different ways. Some take this freedom in stride and prove that they are up to the challenge, while many others prove they are not mature enough for life without mom and dad's structure. Nearly a third of college freshman will drop-out of school after their first year (Smith). What is the culprit for this, you may ask? One of the biggest problems for college freshmen is a lack of time management skills; in other words, they do not know how to divide a limited amount of time between a huge amount of tasks.

Just one cause of this problem is the lack of effective transitioning between high school and college. High school teachers may say that they are preparing their students for college; however, they only touch on the academic aspects. No doubt, this is a very important aspect of college, but if students don't possess the means to take responsibility for themselves then the transition into college can be very difficult, and it becomes harder for them to succeed. During high school students still live at home and have their parents managing their schedules. When it comes to going out with their friends or doing homework, parents make the final decision while their kids are still in high school. This usually means students get stuck at home agonizing over their chemistry homework instead of going out. Instead of teaching time management, the parents manage time for their children.

Another problem that is created by a lack of effective transitioning into college life is the lack of a first-year student seminar program not only before classes start, but continuously throughout the first semester. This past year, CSU-Pueblo implemented the Wolf Fest orientation program for the incoming freshmen. While this was a major step in the right direction, there are changes and improvements that can be made. Many colleges do not even have a plan that introduces students to the school and gets them involved with other students. Wolf Fest does give new students a great chance to have fun and get to know one another, but that's all it truly does. There are no seminars that provide students with different time management tips for how to deal with the heavy course load along with the opportunity for different school clubs, part-time jobs, and other activities that may arise.

Outside of the classroom, the campus environment offers little structure and opportunity for academic success. The dorms are noisy and often students have to wait until quiet hours (10:00 pm) to begin studying. This may work in some classes but try writing a major term paper or studying for a midterm late at night while you are fighting off sleep. Students may have the option to relocate to the library or another area where they can be alone and have more time to study, but this can lead to further distractions. Time planned for studying could be interrupted by a friend who happens to be passing by; and there is always the chance of discovering material needed for the assignment is back in your room. In an unpredictable and unstructured environment, it is very difficult to control your time management unless you have been taught the proper skills.

Here at CSU-Pueblo, our campus faces a problem that not many of the other universities in Colorado face; we have a lack of campus community and student life activities to make students feel more connected to the school. This is an absolute shame, seeing that many activities can connect students to clubs that are academic based or place a high emphasis on schoolwork. Being involved in a club can give students an opportunity to network with older students in their major. A study that tracked college readiness in first generation college freshmen noted that, "...student academic and social integration was positively correlated with student success" (Byrd).

Since I've been involved in Alpha Sigma Alpha, I have many resources that have been there for me. Older students who have already been through many of the business courses that I've taken are there to help me in deciding which classes to take when. They are also a great resource for used textbooks and help on homework assignments. During the past year I have filled out numerous time grids each semester, seeing what time I have available to study, work-out, socialize, or just take time out for myself. The more involved I have gotten, the more I learned how to manage the time that I didn't spend in class or meetings.

Also, upper classmen can be great resources for first-year students, but unless students become involved in school organizations or clubs, it is harder to get to know upper classmen. Very few upper classmen live in Belmont Residence Hall (where almost all freshmen are required to live) and many students opt to live off-campus after their freshman year. The Walking Stick apartments are viewed as far too expensive by most students, and instead of one roommate you now have to deal with three others. Since the classes are so large and divided by the number of years you've been in school, it is difficult to get to know other students that do not live in the dorms.

However, if student life continues to sit on the back burner then we should implement more freshmen oriented programs with older mentors. During my time as a peer mentor in the FOCUS program, I had no problem giving all the students in my learning community my phone number and email address. I asked them to get in contact with me if they had any questions