What are your greatest problems, pains or frustrations about college?

Parent Cafe
1

Hello Parents,

My name is Aileen and I graduated college in August of last year. I was a first-generation student and I really really struggled through college. I went to 3 different universities, 2 different community colleges, I lost scholarships and was placed in academic probation for poor grades, I changed my major 3 times and at one point I had even quit school for 2 years. After finally having someone in my life who understood the college experience and encouraged me to return to school, I received my Bachelors of Science in Biology last year. But this was not after many struggles and a lot of college debt.

I am now doing research to see how I can help students such as myself. To help them save time, and money, and all sorts of struggles that I encountered throughout college.

If you guys have the time, I’d really appreciate your answers to the following questions:

a) When it comes to college, what are your greatest problems, pains or frustrations?

b) What are your greatest challenges when it comes overcoming those problems?

c) If you could wave a magic wand and get any results when it comes to being successful in college, what would that look like for you?

d) If you can’t find a way to solve these problems, and they continue for the next year - or more, what negative consequences do you fear for yourself and your life overall?

Thank you to all of you willing to help and participate. Your answers will only be for informational purposes, and will not used in any context outside of this posting.

  • Aileen
2

That’s really awesome of you.

I’m a junior at a top 10 school, premed, studying Applied Mathematics. Not a first-gen student (though my parents aren’t from the US and can’t help me with the college process), but a URM. Some issues I’ve faced:

a) Trouble learning how to advocate for myself as a student and upcoming professional – I come from a pretty sheltered environment. So it’s been difficult to come to a school where I’m expected to be comfortable interacting with professors, professionals, and people in authority, and to ask things of them (letters of recommendation, opportunities to shadow, chances to volunteer, etc.) that I wouldn’t normally feel entitled to ask for. This has been an issue for me and many of my peers, many of whom are first-generation students and people of color.

b) Trouble identifying and seeking help for mental health problems.

c) Trouble deciding what to major in and ending up having to take on a difficult courseload to graduate on time. I just settled on a major at the start of my junior year.

The biggest reason I’ve experienced these problems and struggled to overcome them has been internal: depression, anxiety, and social anxiety. I’ve talked to countless “advisors” and “mentors,” but until I confronted the mental issues, all of the obligations and expectations for me were too overwhelming to handle.

d) Grade deflation has been a major frustration for me and many of my peers.

e) So has financial aid that, at this school, tends to decline as the years go by. This has been frustrating for my family, but I can only imagine the added layer of stress that finances add to many of my friends who are working and paying for their own (expensive) education.

B is “resolved”; C/D, E can’t really be fixed (though I will try harder to get better aid for next year); A is still going on.

If I could get any results out of all this, it would just be to make it through to the end with my GPA intact, haha. And to make time for things that are fun. I also hope to have more certainty about whether I want to go to medical school after graduating (if I decide not to, to find a career path that won’t have made this expensive, mentally-taxing experience a waste of time).

If I can’t get all the connections and experiences I’m expected to get as a premed student, and if this school destroys my GPA, I’m probably going to work a little bit to figure my life out and end up applying to medical school after a few gap years, which will make things like the MCAT and getting letters of recommendation even harder. My parents will likely be disappointed; there’s a good chance they will pressure me to apply and waste thousands of dollars because they don’t understand how selective and competitive med school admissions are. Only one of my parents works and my brother also goes to school, so even though they insist on paying for my education, I really don’t like putting financial strain on them.

3

@OnMyWay2013 keep in mind if you get some bad grades you can think of DO school instead of MD school…DO will let you replace grades where as MD’s won’t.

4

@bopper I’d hate to go from having a competitive GPA to being completely unqualified for MD schools in the next three semesters, but going DO is an option that I do keep forgetting, so that does take some of the pressure off.

5

Wow, @OnMyWay2013 thank you so much for your feedback. I can completely sympathize with you on all of the things you mentioned. Finances were a huge reason why I quit school for a few years. It wasn’t until I was 24 that FAFSA would recognize that I was financially independent and needed assistance. It’s a ridiculous rule in my opinion.

If you don’t mind me asking, what do you think would have been helpful to you when trying to form relationships with your professors and eventually being able to ask for letters of recommendations and other advice?

6

At my school, the culture is such that the expectation is to either know how to do things like form relationships with professors, or to find the answer or “feel it out” on your own. It would have been helpful if professors reached out to students and told them, “Hey, feel free to come to my office if you have a question or want me to review a topic, or even just to say ‘Hi.’” So many professors just say where and when their office hours are and don’t say what they’re for. Also, my school used to have events like lunch with a professor, which showed a lot of willingness on their part to communicate with students.

Strong mentorship would have also been very helpful to me. I’ve had so many mentors and advisors in my three years–three different academic advisors, pre-professional advisors, student major “ambassadors,” multicultural student mentors and advisors. But they come across as, “You should know what you’re doing, but come find me if you need any advice.” I often had very vague concerns (I don’t know if I should be premed) that I knew no one could help me with, or I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I really needed someone who would help me set up some goals and ways to accomplish them at the beginning of the semester (which, every semester I would have said that I wanted to talk to professors), and then check up with me on them. Or if I had said that I was struggling in one of my classes, would say, “Well, this would be a great thing to bring up with your professor.” And then say, “Hey, maybe you should keep in touch with this person, or take another class under them.”

I get that some schools don’t have the staff to be so invested in every student, but my school definitely has distinct “academic advisors” for whom this is their job.

7

Spend time and effort researching schools so you can stay at the same school for all of your undergrad education. OP- you spent a lot of time adjusting to new situations. Every freshman needs to adjust to college life and how things work at the school. Once familiar with the physical campus, courses and how to be a college student it becomes easier to get more out of the school. Changing schools means devoting time and energy to the adjustment process again.

A balance of financial, academic and social/cultural factors helps. This means making sure the college is not overwhelming in rigor or too easy to lack challenges and sufficient depth in wanted courses. But- it also means forgoing the school that strains the family budget or going with the cheapest option without looking at other factors. It also means considering the nonacademic factors- not staying entirely within one’s comfort zone but also not ignoring deal killers (one example would be being a liberal on a very conservative campus with a religion you do not believe in).

The schools depend on one’s personality as well. Some want “hand holding” while others thrive when making their own decisions without mandatory advice.

I did NOT want to go to my nearby flagship but it was a wonderful experience. I highly recommend living on campus instead of home if at all possible- an experience one can never replicate later. Having a top notch public U with opportunities that came to me was wonderful. Looking back there are things I would have done differently- hindsight is wonderful and we are never the same person we were when we made those decisions.

It is important for the student, not the parents, to make final decisions about which school to attend, what major to chose and which courses to take. The options will already have been limited by family finances. Being the one making the choices without family pressures makes the student own his/her life. Finally- allow yourself to make mistakes and changes in the original plan.

Addenda- if I had to do it all over again I would have led a less frugal lifestyle. Too bad my current self can’t give money to my past self.

8

Aileen, why not search out the mentoring programs that work with high school kids (in some areas, these begin in middle school.) You can volunteer with them, learn from their experiences. If you feel the schools you attended don’t offer good support, you can ask at another, learn what programs in your area do support kids, at least through their first years in college. This is a noble effort.

9

Frankly, the road to medical school should not be that torturous, it should be much more straight forward. Do not forget that Medical school is harsh, it pushes the person to the extremes in all aspects of human life, there is no reason to have such a stressful life at college. just save yourself. The pre-med life could be streamlined and pretty enjoyable and does not have to cost tons, do not forget again, the medical school is costly, save your family resources for the medical school.
I am sorry that I did not answer the question about challenges. My post is more about how to avoid them.
Here I can describe how “gliding thru” pre-med life could be accomplished:

  • attend at college that offered you full tuition Merit or close to full tuition
  • make sure to have a balanced schedule every semester with no more than 2 hard classes balanced by easier classes. Minor may be very useful for that. Something like minor in Music may be very rewarding and will provide you with so needed R&R
  • make sure to get an A in every single class you take. If class is unbelievably challenging, then your efforts needs to adjust upwards. If you do not have a goal of an A, then more likely than not, you will not have an A. Several non-A grades may put you in jeopardy in your goal of achieving college GPA of 3.6+ as a min.
  • make sure to participate in various medical ECs. They will result in great fun and learning and meting new people and obtaining great LORs
  • make sure to take more credits in 1-2 year, since you will need lighter schedule in junior year when you study for the MCAT and in senior year when you travel to medical school interviews
  • make sure to study for the MCAT in your junior year, take it and apply to medical schools in a summer after junior year
  • apply as early as possible
    -all along, do not forget that you are a human being, you are not a super being. You need to sleep some decent amount of hours, you need to have a social life, you need to participate in college life, you want to develop as a person.
  • just keep in mind that whatever challenges you have as a pre-med, medical school challenges are “quantum leap” higher (according to my D., I never attended medical school. I personally believe that medical school is for heroes, I call every medical student a hero and nothing less). So, there is no reason in a world to maximize your challenges as a pre-med. Take a simple approach and be happy with that.
10

Thanks so much for the feedback! This is great stuff. I’d love to hear from more people if possible :slight_smile:

11

I was also a first-gen, low income student. I didn’t struggle quite the same way but I did have to work full time and that didn’t really leave time for research and other things that would’ve been helpful. Through a series of very fortunate events, I was able to go from undergrad to my master’s to my current PhD program despite deficiencies.

I’m going to be honest- by the time you get to college, it is often too late to intervene for a successful first run. You need skills BEFORE you get there in order to be successful. I used to work with middle school students to encourage their interest in post-high school options. That is the age range that I think would work best.

What skills? How to advocate for one’s self. How to balance school/work. How to interpret academic jargon and/or know how to seek out help.

For first gen, low income students, I think living on campus is CRUCIAL. Too often, these students are expected to be the permanent babysitter for younger siblings and it can really cut into studying time.