My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student

Like other reviewers, I have misgivings about the ethics of "Rebekah Nathan's" undercover exploration of student life. Anthropologists may become participant observers but certainly her fellow students might feel betrayed. At the same time, I couldn't stop reading. Few university press books combine academic discourse with readability as well as this one does. I was a college professor myself for 20+ years, but in the business school. And I didn't find a single surprise -- except, was Nathan really unaware of her students as much as she claims? Several years ago, I remember a summer school student complaining, "You give too much work! Who has time for this? I have a wedding in my family and my folk dance lessons..." Nathan's glorifies international students, who criticize Americans for shallow friendship and lightweight classes. But I taught international MBA students who said calmly, "We won't be in class next week. We're going sightseeing. It would be a shame to come all this way and then not see [a local attraction]." And some international students have less than ideal motivations -- not to mention disregard of female professors. Nathan bemoans the lack of student participation. In the business school, we were encouraged to motivate students. I rarely had trouble getting students to participate: discussion groups, in-class activities and more. But she's right about so many elements of student culture. I returned for my PhD when I was in my 30's (deemed the "older woman" by my professors - I wish I were kidding). So in a way I experienced some of her frustrations, including time management, conflicts, inexorable deadlines and arbitrary administrative policies. I also realized that students knew the university better than the professors; as a professor, I remember one student getting annoyed because I had no idea where the bookstore was. And she's depicted student networks in a fascinating way. Students rarely made new friends after freshman year. Many retained ties to high school friends. And she's captured the businesslike way today's students approach college life: like a 9 to 5 job, she says, and she's right. I would have expected Nathan to dwell more on educational values in society, which may account for a great deal of student lack of academic interest. In the US, the appearance of intelligence can disqualify us from jobs and political office. Corporate recruiters have told me, "I don't want the egghead A student -- give me the hard-working C+ student, who's also working and joining a fraternity." In what may be the most fascinating and revealing anecdote in the book, Nathan shares an exercise she gives her students. Okay, we know there are no witches. But if there were a witch in this classroom, who would it be? Inevitably, she say, the most motivated students get named. Mostly I was surprised that Nathan doesn't discuss faculty evaluations from the student perspective. Many academic weaknesses, I believe, are directl

It is refreshing to see something about today's students that isn't simply about drugs, sex and alcohol. This book helped me (as a fifty something myself, who has taught the college level) appreciate many of the trials and tribulations that students today face. I'm heartened to know of a teacher who would take a year out of her life to understand her students by trying to do what they do. I liked that she neither whitewashed students nor condemned them, but rather kept an outlook of true empathy and interest in them. She seemed to really learn something as a teacher, and so did I from her account.

I urge potential readers to ignore the harping over perceived intellectual slights suggested by many reviewers of Rebekah Nathan's "My Freshman Year". The intent of the book was to help students in their college experience by informing faculty and administrators about the current student culture, both its limitations and its potential advantages to learning. As such, the book deserves to be read by all parents of college- bound high school students, college students, teachers and professors, and administrators interested in giving students the best education possible. I too am a college professor and find that the intellection aspirations of my freshmen are now different than my pedagogical expectations. Nathan's book provides at least some answers for the differences, which I rapidly am using to make my classes more accessible --while still providing students the content they need and deserve. So, I am frankly astounded at many of the reviews I have here read, which center not on the content of the book, but on how Nathan got her information--by posing as a freshman to make students feel comfortable around her. As a physical scientist, I am dumbstruck that some social scientists and others think this approach was somehow "unethical." Nathan went to great lengths to avoid reporting things that might be construed to be improper, didn't report actual names, certainly was not "spying" (the intent to do harm or gain advantage over those in the dark), and even became friends with students for whom she obviously had great affection and respect. I intuitively know that if Nathan's freshmen had been aware that they were being observed, they'd have behaved quite differently. Look at Reality TV to see my point, as one extreme of a continuum of "behavior modifications" when being watched. The great anthropologist Margaret Mead was even duped by the islanders, who knew they were being studied, in her classic investigation in the South Pacific. Nathan did no harm in "My Freshman Year," but rather, did a great collective good for students and faculty alike. Read this book.

This book is oriented to the relationship between today's college students and their academic work. Thank goodness it skips the juicy bits that attract journalists: binge drinking, date rape, fraternity hazing. Instead, it wonders, why are students so disengaged from the world of ideas? Why do students almost never ask to have a word defined? Why do they assume deadlines and strictures against plagiarism and cheating infinitely elastic? The traditional explanations by college profesors run along these lines: (1) It's all the fault of K-12 teachers and administrators; (2) The new generation is just no good. This book looks at the passage of today's college students from consumerism (as entering freshmen) to careerism (as graduating seniors), and observes that this particularly modern transition never quite passes through the life of the mind. There are also discussions of conformity, community and diversity, and the views of Americam students given by foreign-exchange students. We find that pairing hard and easy classes, and grouping classes into two or three days a week, are perfectly rational time-management techniques, and don't pose particular problems once the students master their use. If you're a college professor you'll find this book filled with insights about your students, and why they do what they do.

A REAL story about college life. Insightful, honest, and true. I found it comforting (and a little disturbing) to hear about college through the eyes and ears of an observer living it day to day. This book tells it like it is, something very few books on college life achieve. Another title I can't recommend enough is The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College. Another non-fiction account of college life, right from the mouths of students from over 100 college campuses (author is Harlan Cohen). I read it and then gave it to my daughter. Both are 5 stars.