At the end of a very interesting first semester of college, there are many parts of school to reflect upon. The social night life, cafeteria food and being away from home are all changes that students must get used to. However, all those aspects of college revolve around the main reason students attend a college or university after high school. Your education and the college degree that comes with it is the most important tool to success for anyone in the real world. To help new students take advantage of these opportunities and privileges of college, Andrew Roberts in his book, The Thinking Student’s Guide to College: 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education, discusses his top seventy-five tips that a undergraduate in college should think about throughout their college experience. He covers topics that discuss the ideas of choosing challenging courses, managing your time and interacting with foreign students. However, I believe one of his most influential pieces of advice is something simpler than some of his other tips. He recommends students to “write emails judiciously and to answer them promptly”. The tip he mentions applies well to the way students interact and the way in which the world works today. E-mail allows students and faculty alike to respond at the most convenient times in their schedules.
The most vital point of Robert’s tip is the second part of his advice; responding promptly. He states, “If you receive an e-mail from a professor, it is best to answer immediately. Not only might you forget about it as it drops down your e-mail queue, but you are potentially annoying a professor who has taken the time to think of you personally” (Roberts, 120). Responding to e-mails quickly and in a professional manner depicts your character as both a person and student. Nowadays, students send e-mails with grammar mistakes and abbreviated vocabulary in their messages. In the world after college, these characteristics of an e-mail portray a lack of professionalism. They are changes that have to be made to demonstrate that you both care and can be taken seriously.
An additional reason why I respect this tip so much is because it fits into a vague piece of advice that I would encourage many incoming students to think about. I would suggest students to follow through. Although short and basic, it entails a great amount of experience. Like responding or writing e-mails, people depend on you to get things done in an efficient and professional way. As a student athlete at Trinity College, I so often find myself affiliated with the word commitment. Whether it is maintaining good grades, meeting students and teachers for scheduled appointments or being on time, others expect you to have the maturity to follow through.
I recall the first time I had scheduled an appointment with a teacher to seek additional help for a class I was struggling in at the time. Beyond the flexible office hours and tutoring sessions set up by the teacher’s assistant, my schedule did not match up to allow me to find extra help. However, because of a commitment to teaching and to providing all students to get help, my professor designated more time slots to fulfill my personal need to learn outside of class. To make this additional session useful, I was assigned a lengthy packet of material to review before my meeting. This packet was intended to help myself realize the problems I was having with the material and to provide extra exercises outside of the homework. Regrettably, the packet remained untouched while I focused on other work and hanging out with friends. When the time came to meet with my professor and fix the problems I had been having on exams, I had no understanding of what I had to accomplish. I failed to hold my end of the deal up. Rather than following through on my responsibilities, I wasted not only my time but the time of someone who made an effort to assist me personally.
I can tell you the obvious lessons from my mistake but the general point is college itself places more responsibility on students than they are used to in the past. Being able to take account for your own actions and behavior is critical throughout your four years at a university. Without the constant supervision of a parent or long time friends, responsibility to get things accomplished and to stay out of trouble becomes a one person job. Simple tasks such as completing you part of a project or making a phone call on the behalf of someone else are minor scenarios you will find yourself in all the time. Following through not only does you a favor, but it helps others as well. One of the best qualities in a young individual is the ability to be depended upon. Follow through.
Bibliography:
Roberts, Andrew Lawrence. The Thinking Student’s Guide to College. ; 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print.
About the author: Casey Tanner is a first-year student in the Color and Money Seminar. He is from Wellesley, Ma and has created this work to help the incoming class of 2012 have a smooth transition into the college lifestyle.