Baldwin et al.
(2020)
Adjustments to College Are Inevitable
College not only will expand your mind, but it may also make you a little uncomfortable, challenge your
identity, and at times, make you doubt your abilities. It is hard to truly learn anything without getting messy.
This is what education does: it transforms us. For that to happen, however, means that we will need to be open
to the transformation and allow the changes to occur. Flexibility, transition, and change are all words that
describe what you will experience. Laurie Hazard and Stephanie Carter (2018) 6 use the word adjustment.
Hazard and Carter (2018) believe there are six adjustment areas that first-year college students experience:
academic, cultural, emotional, financial, intellectual, and social. Of course, you won’t go through these
adjustments all at once or even in just the first year. Some will take time, while others may not even feel like
much of a transition. Let’s look at them in brief as a way of preparing for the road ahead:
• Academic adjustment. No surprises here. You will most likely—depending on your own academic
background—be faced with the increased demands of learning in college. This could mean that you need
to spend more time learning to learn and using those strategies to master the material.
• Cultural adjustment. You also will most likely experience a cultural adjustment just by being in college
because most campuses have their own language (syllabus, registrar, and office hours, for example) and
customs. You may also experience a cultural adjustment because of the diversity that you will encounter.
Most likely, the people on your college campus will be different than the people at your high school—or at
your workplace.
• Emotional adjustment. Remember the range of emotions presented at the beginning of the chapter?
Those will likely be present in some form throughout your first weeks in college and at stressful times
during the semester. Knowing that you may have good days and bad—and that you can bounce back from
the more stressful days—will help you find healthy ways of adjusting emotionally.
• Financial adjustment. Most students understand the investment they are making in their future by going
to college. Even if you have all your expenses covered, there is still an adjustment to a new way of thinking
about what college costs and how to pay for it. You may find that you think twice about spending money
on entertainment or that you have improved your skills in finding discounted textbooks.
• Intellectual adjustment. Experiencing an intellectual “a-ha!” moment is one of the most rewarding parts
of college, right up there with moving across the graduation stage with a degree in hand. Prepare to be
surprised when you stumble across a fascinating subject or find that a class discussion changes your life.
At the very least, through your academic work, you will learn to think differently about the world around
you and your place in it.
• Social adjustment. A new place often equals new people. But in college, those new relationships can have
even more meaning. Getting to know professors not only can help you learn more in your classes, but it
can also help you figure out what career pathway you want to take and how to get desired internships and
jobs. Learning to reduce conflicts during group work or when living with others helps build essential
workplace and life skills.
The table Six Areas of Adjustment for First-Year College Students provides a succinct definition for each of the
areas as well as examples of how you can demonstrate that you have adjusted. Think about what you have
done so far to navigate these transitions in addition to other things you can do to make your college
experience a successful one.
Netiquette: Ground Rules for Online Discussions
As more and more classes include online discussion components, it becomes more and more
important for instructors to understand the rules of etiquette that, when followed, help make the
individual postings easy to follow, keep the conversation thread focused, and the overall
discussion on-track.
Unregulated, an online discussion can quickly disintegrate into a tangled web of extraneous
verbiage, rude language, and inconsiderate behavior guaranteed to derail the conversation.
The basic premise is that the etiquette expected of your students in online discussions is the
same as that which you expect in a classroom. There is a problem, though: the absence of
visual and auditory clues. In face-to-face discussions these clues contribute a lot of nonverbal
nuances of meaning carrying an intangible amount of weight. It’s impossible to replicate these in
an online environment.
To counteract that shift, to raise general awareness, and to assist you in enhancing the learning
experience of your students, here are a dozen online discussion rules to include in your
syllabus. Notice that most of them are just as applicable in face-to-face discussions.
12 Ground Rules for Online Discussions
Participate: This is a shared learning environment. No lurking in the cyberspace background. It
is not enough to login and read the discussion thread of others. For the maximum benefit to all,
everyone must contribute.
Report Glitches: Discussion forums are electronic. They break. If for any reason you experience
difficulty participating, please call, email, or otherwise inform me of the issue. Chances are
others are having the same problem.
Help Others: You may have more experience with online discussion forums than the person
next to you. Give them a hand. Show them it’s not so hard. They’re really going to appreciate it!
Be Patient: Read everything in the discussion thread before replying. This will help you avoid
repeating something someone else has already contributed. Acknowledge the points made with
which you agree and suggest alternatives for those with which you don’t.
Be Brief: You want to be clear—and to articulate your point—without being preachy or
pompous. Be direct. Stay on point. Don’t lose yourself, or your readers, in overly wordy
sentences or paragraphs.
Use Proper Writing Style: This is a must. Write as if you were writing a term paper. Correct
spelling, grammatical construction and sentence structure are expected in every other writing
activity associated with scholarship and academic engagement. Online discussions are no
different.
Cite Your Sources: Another big must! If your contribution to the conversation includes the
intellectual property (authored material) of others, e.g., books, newspaper, magazine, or journal
articles—online or in print—they must be given proper attribution.
Emoticons and Texting: Social networking and text messaging has spawned a body of linguistic
shortcuts that are not part of the academic dialogue. Please refrain from faces, c u l8r, LOL, and
the like.
Respect Diversity: It’s an ethnically rich and diverse, multi-cultural world in which we live. Use
no language that is—or that could be construed to be—offensive toward others. Racists, sexist,
and heterosexist comments and jokes are unacceptable, as are derogatory and/or sarcastic
comments and jokes directed at religious beliefs, disabilities, and age.
No YELLING! Step carefully. Beware the electronic footprint you leave behind. Using bold
upper-case letters is bad form, like stomping around and yelling at somebody (NOT TO
MENTION BEING HARD ON THE EYE).
No Flaming! Criticism must be constructive, well-meaning, and well-articulated. Please, no
tantrums. Rants directed at any other contributor are simply unacceptable and will not be
tolerated. The same goes for profanity. The academic environment expects higher-order
language.
Lastly, Remember: You Can’t Un-Ring the Bell. Language is your only tool in an online
environment. Be mindful. How others perceive you will be largely—as always—up to you. Once
you’ve hit the send button, you’ve rung the bell.
Review your written posts and responses to ensure that you’ve conveyed exactly what you
intended. This is an excellent opportunity to practice your proofreading, revision, and rewriting
skills—valuable assets in the professional world for which you are now preparing.
Hint: Read your post out loud before hitting the send button. This will tell you a lot about whether
your grammar and sentence structure are correct, your tone is appropriate, and your
contribution clear or not
Unit 1 Assignment Template
UNIV 1001 Unit 1
Assignment Activity Template
Assignment Response
1. .....
2. .....
References
NOTE: List all sources you used to support your responses. Listing resources is
important to show the credibility of your work, allow others to verify your information,
and acknowledge the original authors of the content you used.