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OLDER AND WISER, TEACHING ASSISTANT ADVISES FRESHMEN
Author: Date: SUNDAY, December 6, 1998Graduate students are in a perfect position to reflect on freshman year. Having been there, done that, they view the first-year college experience through the focused lens of maturity and perspective. The Globe's Marie C. Franklin talked with 24-year-old Jamia Gaffney, a graduate student at Boston University's College of Communication, or COM. As she completes her studies and aspires to a broadcasting career, Gaffney looked back on what she's learned while serving as a teaching assistant in freshman classes and working in COM's office of student services.
A. A really normal situation would be a student coming in with no concept of time management. They've never had to keep a daily planner or do any long-term planning. That's so common and it's also really easy to fix just by sitting down with them, showing them how to come up with a calendar. The bizarre is when you have a student come in with an unusual roommate problem. I know one student whose roommate was in the School of Fine Arts, studying drama and acting. He was writing a play about killing his roommate. My first reaction was "It's time to find some different housing." He didn't know whether he was overreacting or not, but he did say he was finding it hard to study in his room. . . . He eventually moved and got a new roommate. Q. What's the hardest adjustment for freshmen to make? A. Learning to stand on your own. Suddenly, there's no one looking over your shoulders anymore, and you realize the impact of being away from family and parents. The professors don't operate like high school teachers. You attend large lectures, and in some cases your professor may not even know if you're there. It's not like high school where if you cut class someone is going to call you on it right away. Q. What would you change about your own freshman year if you could? A. I think I would have looked harder at the people I chose for friends. When you're in a new place, I don't think your judgment is always the best. Sometimes you latch on to the first friendly face, and that can affect how the year goes. Q. Academically, are freshmen ready for college? A. We see a real range . . . especially in the College of Communication, where the emphasis is on writing. A lot of students haven't been asked to do the kind of writing we have them do right away . . . and public speaking is often a difficulty. When I was a TA, I had 20 students in my section. They ranged from students who were really struggling with writing to those who were writing better than I. . . . That's where student services comes in. If we hear the name of a student who is struggling, we set an appointment and try to narrow down the problem right away so that it doesn't become disastrous. Q. Did you have any career plans when you were a freshman? A. No. . . . I knew that I would probably go to graduate school, but I didn't worry much about it. In most cases schools don't require a major until sophomore or junior year, which is good. Q. Many universities, like BU, are pretty big places. How do freshmen navigate the maze? A. I'm a strange one to ask, having gone to one of the smallest liberal arts colleges in the country, Wells College in Aurora, N.Y. . . . But I think there are a lot of ways to cope with the size. . . . Some do it simply by being in a smaller college within the university, or becoming part of a specialized major or department. . . . Socially, students tend to become involved with fraternities and sororities, which, like dorms, tend to create a smaller network of people to become close to. But despite its large size, this place operates like a machine compared to where I went to school. I'm grateful everyday for its bigness. Q. Given all the media attention to under-age drinking on college campuses, do you see any changes in student attitudes? A. Being a grad student, I live off campus, and am not in the same social setting. But I think there will always be tragic things like that happening. It used to be fraternity hazing and paddling people to death. It happened when I was in school. I'm not sure why, but it's part of the college initiation rites to drink and be stupid, although I know many, many abstain. But I think it does make students stop and look and think twice before doing something that is potentially dangerous. Q. Any advice for students getting ready to take exams? A. Pace yourself. Try not to get overwhelmed. When you get overwhelmed, you get paralyzed, which is counterproductive. Being really organized around exam times helps, sitting down and coming up with a doable work schedule, like I'll read chapters 1 through 4 today and chapters 5 through 7 tomorrow. Break it up in pieces and make it more digestible. Q. Any advice for parents anxious about their child coming home for the holidays? A. Telling parents not to worry is pointless because parents will always worry. But if they stay calm and keep an open mind, that will be helpful in the end. Remember that students have become adjusted to a certain sense of independence living away from home. They are living by a different set of rules, probably ones that they have created. So to come home for a long break and suddenly be in your old life is hard. Your mother asks "What time are you going to be home?" and you haven't heard those words since August. Why, it's little things like that that make it hard.
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