subject: Unprepared College Students Confronted By Life-shaping Decisions [print this page] College students are suddenly thrust into a world where they have to make major life-shaping decisions on their own, with little to no direction from others and little prior experience making these types of decisions. Its not fair. But thats life.
Throughout high school, students are somewhat sheltered with little responsibility for decisions. Parents, teachers, and schools make most academic decisions for them, as well as decisions about balancing commitments. Parents set boundaries for what is acceptable behavior, ranging from how much time to spend on academics, whether smoking, drinking, or drugs are going to be allowed, and what type of interaction with boyfriends or girlfriends will be permissible.
In college, all of that changes overnight. Once they hit campus, parents and teachers are no longer physically present. Students need to make their own decisions. Academically, this means deciding what courses to take and what to major in, as well as how much time to study. They need to decide on extracurricular activities, roommates, what to do in the summer, and whether to study a semester abroad.
Most high school students were required to abide by the social and academic boundaries set by their parents, but once in college they are free to do what they want, when they want. They decide on their own boundaries or live without any. In college they are confronted by decisions about partying, sex, drinking, and drugs. The vast majority of students are not prepared to make these decisions. They can be easily swayed by peer pressure when they are not strong in their own decisions. And for the first time, they are on their own financially, needing to make spending decisions and eve borrowing decisions as they are all offered credit cards for the first time.
Life-shaping decisions begin even before they set foot on campus. The decisions about which schools to apply to and which to attend set them on a journey for the rest of their lives. Although they get advice on these college application and selection decisions from parents and advisors, in the end they make their own decisions, even if they dont know how to make them.
College student decisions or the decision not to make intentional decisions are life shaping, and they are not prepared to make these decisions. The damage done from poor decisions made by college students can be measured in high drop-out rates, numerous academic failures, wide-spread discipline problems, costly changes in majors and schools, and unfortunately, high injury rates.
Decision making is a skill, but one that is often overlooked in preparing students to jump into a world where their decisions have life-shaping ramifications. Our students are taught how to form a proper sentence, how to calculate mathematical equations, and even the history of our great country. But they are never taught the skill that can possibly lead to great success or potential failure. We seem to prefer that they learn by making mistakes and unfortunately that is how they learn to make decisions in college, through mistakes.
At this time of year, millions of high school students are preparing for their college journey. The least we can do as parents, educators, and mentors is to help them improve their decision-making skills to prepare them for this new world of decisions they will confront.
