Ready or not, here comes College!

Starting college can feel like a game of hide and seek: the terror of being found out as not good enough at hiding... One's deficiencies, that is.

Transitioning into a college level class presents various challenges to all students. High schools traditionally structure forced accountability into their classes: attendance, detention, remedial classes, parent-teacher conferences, report cards... However, college students operate at a more autonomous level. You choose your class schedule, you make yourself go to class and you have to find help when you are failing.

Many freshman are not academically prepared for the challenge of college work. College students of all majors must be proficient at understanding and communicating through reading and writing. So what do we do with students who are weak writers? Who have never read an academic paper before? Who have never been asked to critically understand an article or formally communicate an interpretation?

We must provide classes that teach these essential skills.

Whether their high school education failed to prepare them or they are English-language learners or they struggle with learning disabilities, all students deserve the opportunity to pursue a college-level education. Universities must fund, staff, advertise, and sometimes even require students to seek counseling and help from remedial resources such as basic skill classes, tutoring centers, and community college programs that will aid their transition to higher education.

That said, this is college. Students are autonomous adults who must make the choice to attend class and seek help when necessary. If remedial courses at a four-year university do not help, that student perhaps should attend a community college. But start by advertising student resources, and the motivated will seek them out.

We cannot assume that all students will begin college with equal competence levels in reading, writing and communicating. But we cannot exclude the students who have struggled. Instead, let universities provide tools that will encourage and ensure that their struggles become their successes.