Trends among first-year students at St. Olaf College

During a two-day retreat in June 2004, CoFYE synthesized information from meetings with student support staff, faculty, and students.   In order to foster a coherent first-year experience, we first had to understand common characteristics, behaviors, and experiences, as well as differences, among first-year students.  

Common Characteristics, Behaviors, and Experiences

Range of Difference

Common Characteristics (detail)

18-19 years old

  • Separating from peers/family
  • Creating a life plan (academic, personal, career)
  • Developing individual identity within groups
  • Discovering diversity
  • Moving beyond binary thinking to recognize more complex relationships
  • Acquiring new tools for college-level work and recognizing that high school behaviors may not enable college success

Full-time Student Status

  • Studying, living, and working in a learning community
  • Working fewer than 20 hrs per week for pay
  • Participating in first-year, on-campus Interim
  • Connecting experiences across Semester I, Interim, and Semester II
  • Choosing how to use unscheduled time

Residential Experience

  • Living with roommate (s) (Many first-year students have never shared a bedroom before coming to campus.)
  • Living with a Conversation Program cohort and blending academic/personal conversations 
  • Being governed and guided by junior counselors and an area coordinator 
  • Learning to be a resident citizen on many levels (room, corridor, floor, residence hall)
  • Choosing healthy or unhealthy recreation activities
  • Assuming or rejecting responsibility for residence hall property
  • Participating in residence hall programming
  • Developing wellness habits

Common Dining

  • Managing when, what, and how much to eat
  • Adjusting to meal schedules
  • Socializing at mealtimes as part of campus culture
  • Recognizing and forming social groups in the cafeteria
  • Eating in Stav Hall, The Cage, or the Pause (Who can and can't afford to pay for food not included in meal program?)
  • Negotiating eating disorders and body image issues

Week One Orientation

  • Moving in to residence halls
  • Socializing
  • Meeting academic advisor
  • Participating in academic transition workshops
  • Choosing courses and planning schedules
  • Attending department information sessions
  • Being introduced to student support staff and resources
  • Learning campus geography
  • Choosing extracurricular activities
  • Saying intentional "hellos" and "goodbyes" at Welcome Ceremony
  • Witnessing academic ritual and culture during faculty processions

Common Catalog

  • Planning according to curriculum (e.g., general education, majors/concentrations)
  • Understanding and questioning policies (e.g. grading procedures)

Academic Advisor

  • Establishing an immediate intentional relationship with a faculty member
  • Planning short-term and long-term academic goals and schedules
  • Seeking alternate advisors as interests develop

E-mail and Cell Phone Use

  • Using email as a primary means of communicating with faculty
  • Assuming faculty and peers are available at any time for immediate response
  • Rendering dorm phones obsolete (Many students do not connect their residence hall phone voice mail and do not know their dorm phone number.)
  • Creating a new "umbilical cord" to parents through cell phone use

GE 111, Conversation Programs, Religion 121

  • Participating in interdisciplinary introduction to liberal arts education
  • Taking ownership through choice of a Conversation Program or thematic sections of GE 111 and Religion 121
  • Entering local academic dialogue through small-class discussion
  • Entering larger academic discussion through reading, writing, and research
  • Becoming a classroom citizen
  • Gaining skills, confidence, and living habits during Semester I which impact performance and behaviors during Semester II
  • Negotiating questions of purpose and fairness among required first-year courses when faced with disparity among sections
  • Seeking helping through the Writing Place
  • Experiencing different ways of knowing through variety of reading and writing assignments
  • Choosing to respect or not to respect honor code
  • Seeking or not seeking connections among required first-year courses