Title: The Challenges faced by first year student at the university.
Introduction:
Context: Low performances observed from the first year students at the University.
Subject: Challenges.
Limiting Subject:
a). Challenges.
b). Student.
c). University.
Issue: It is very important to recognize that first year student at the university, faces challenges.
Thesis: The cause of low performance of first year students at the university comprises of a number of challenges. This includes Personal, Educational, Environmental and Social Challenges.
Main point 1. PERSONAL CHALLENGE.
Firstly, Personal challenges faced by first year students at the University may cover three challenges. Loneliness is the first of these three personal challenges. Loneliness is an emotional feeling arises when somebody feels that he/she was been left out by his friends, especially in a totally new environment like here. In addition, it is a quite common feeling faced by most first year students at Universities when they left their families, to do abroad studies in higher level of Education. A common and a classic example, of this feeling is Home and lovesick; this happens when you are missing your family or somebody so special to you in life, apart from each other. Fortunately, this emotional feeling can be only last few weeks to recover from, as more friends will be met in the due time.
Next, for the first year students, communication challenges are a major concern to them. Even though, English is the common language used and well understand by students. However, the main concern of the first year student at the University is, when it comes to the fluency and confidence in oral speaking especially during presentation and discussions during classes. However, this can be only takes some time to get over it, as different students from different countries will started to interact with each other using English language as their common medium of communication.
A further point is financial problem. Most first year students at the University are always having problems when it comes to savings and spending money. Even though, they usually receiving huge amount of money from their sponsors. However, their problem is money sock, since some of them are their first time to receive such a huge amount of money into their own pockets, making them Over excited and even forget that this money will soon gone without even buying educational necessities and learning materials such as text books and other important learning resources. Therefore, the chief cause of financial setback of the first year students at the University is poor financial management.
Main point 2. ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES.
Secondly, Besides Personal challenges, Environmental challenges are also a major concern of the first year students at the University. Learning in a completely new environment is not as easy as one might think, as it requires adaptation to the new Environment. The type of teaching and learning methods may different from the one first year student at the University used during their high schools. For example, the use of library catalogue which will be detailed in the later paragraph is new to most first year students.
Additionally, learning progression can be stagnant in a noisy and too crowded environment for the first year student at the University. A successful and a productive learning outcome need privacy and a conducive environment. Most first year students at the University, found difficulties to learn in a crowded environment as it correlate with a number of negative impacts. Such as, lose concentration and interest in the learning processes. However, in a month or so the first year students at the University should have been adapted to the system if they are eager to learn.
Main point 3. Academic/Educational Challenges.
Thirdly, educational challenges are always a concern as well to most first year students at the University. Academic side in Universities are more professional than High Schools than most first year students might expect, thus, most of them are not serious enough with time management. Time management will be first discuses under the education challenges. It is simply explains how an individual plan and allocate his/her daily activities according to time. Sometimes, first year students are losing opportunities to get extra marks towards their final assessment. For instance, they may late or fail at all to attend to tutorial and labs, which means they will lose marks. In addition, procrastination is also a poison of time management. This word is referring to the manner of keeping tasks such as assignment and Home works to a later date. Consequently, may result in the overall performance of the first year students at the University to a low standard.
Furthermore, it is also a great challenge for the first year students to use the University resources economically. Universities may have different resources to help the students in their studies. Library and computers are classic examples of some of the Universities resources, which can be challenging for the first year students to use. Most Libraries in Universities use catalogues with the aid of computers to locate books and other resources in the library. However, most first year students do not know how to use the library catalogue and even do not know internet research skills to do researches economically, especially those who computer illiterate. However, some Universities finally recognized some of these setbacks in Computer related resources and start to introduce computer related courses to first year students. For instance, just last year 2010, the University of the South Pacific finally introduces a course known as Information and Communication (UU100) to the first year students.
Main point 4: Social Challenges.
Finally, Universities are more entertaining and advance learning grounds, which can bring about freedom to any possibilities in life. In related to the social challenges, “cultivate friendship”, will be the first to discuss before any other social challenges. Most first year students at the University are always happy to meet and making new friends. As time passed by, some first year students seem more than being friendly that is, they want to in a relationships. This can be resulted in certain negative impacts such as low performance in class work, which can then affect the overall grades of the first year students at the University.
The second point to discuss under the social challenges faced by first year students at the University is, Social night programs. In Universities, they have some times to run entertainment nights for the students. In such a program, it can be easily diverting ones interest to drinking and clubbing rather than educational curriculum activities. Those things always encourage drinking and sometimes first year students finally ended up in Clubs and even jail. Take for instance, the incident happened last year after the Vodafone arena Social night organized by the University of the South Pacific where a first year student is found outside a club in Suva so drunk and was taken by the police to the jail for a night over.
Conclusion:
To conclude, it is very important to recognize that most of the first year students always face difficulties at the Universities. This always been a concern of the first year students at the University that due to the fact that adaptation and time always correlates. That is why most of them always perform poorly in their academic result for the first time. Therefore, it should be Understandable why most of the first year students at the University always perform poorly, but sometimes this is not always the case for some very smart students at the Universities.
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