First-year students: Embracing their diversity, enhancing our practice

The transition from high school to college for many traditional-aged students involves leaving home, saying goodbye to friends, family, and loved ones, and setting up residence on a college campus. For others the transition means, at the very least, venturing temporarily outside of their familiar community of family and friends while commuting to college. For first-year students this ritual will likely be repeated for many semesters to come. It is a time of excitement and anxiety, an experience of new beginnings and an end to the practices and traditions of the past twelve years. While in college, students have the opportunity to choose their courses, their professors, if and when they attend class, when and where to eat, where to live and with whom, and a new lifestyle where limited parental control exists except in the attitudes and values instilled over their lifetime. The first year of college involves many new experiences, and first-year students have many opportunities to try new behaviors and embrace new attitudes and beliefs.