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1st Reading Response Assignment //My Freshman Year (p.1-40)// Donielle Tubioli

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In the reading, //My freshman Year// by Rebekah Nathan, Rebekah reflects on her experience when she studied the college life of an undergraduate at AnyU. In order to establish the real- life culture of students at AnyU, she fully involved herself in playing the role of an under- graduate student. She relives every aspect of a student including the freshman move in ("welcome weekend"), dorm life, having classes, being involved in extracurricular activities,as well as establishing a social life. What was the purpose of Rebekah's study on the life of college students? Well, being a professor Rebekah found herself analyzing her students in her classes, she wondered why they acted the way they did in classes( almost uninterested in her class), but she also wondered if this is how she and her colleagues were when they were in college. During her study she stepped outside her culture, and entered into a whole other culture ,a culture of students who represented themselves as loving to have fun, a culture of students who spoke a language different than what she was used to hearing in class lectures, and lastly a culture of students that don't necessarily place academics above everything else (such as work, sports, the gym, etc).

I found this overall concept of a professor re-entering the college life in a first hand experience to be very effective. Rebekah does make it a point in her writing to explain that not all students are the same in her findings, but she was able to get a good overview of the college lives from what she observed and found in her studies. I feel as though times do change, generations change, therefore the students that were once one way during a time period could be completely different than the ways they are now. We may think and act very differently than people older than us may assume we are supposed to be. Even when Rebekah brought up in her text that students do not seem focused in her class because they are too worried about what they are going to do after class.

I found myself being able to relate to a lot of the ideas and explanations she discussed in her study. For example, when she talked about a way of connecting with other students on campus. Many students did not think of her as a student. In fact, when she was in the community lounge people assumed she was a parent instead of a regular student just like them. Many did not feel like they could relate to someone who was much older than them. In fact, the way they spoke was a different dialect of English. A way that Rebekah was actually able to connect with the other students socially was through activity. Through ping-pong she was able to make friends. This brings up a large point when it comes to college life. Usually it is easier to meet friends through activity. It is hard to meet people if you stay in a dorm all day long. You have to be willing to interact with people through activities such as ping pong. If you were to join activities in college that you enjoy doing, you will find people that have similar interests which can allow you to make friends. If it wasn't for engaging in activities with my hall mates my freshman year of college, I would not have made the friendships I made.

In //My Freshman Year// Rebekah explains how because of scheduling and the times our classes are arranged opposed to our roommates or our hall mates can challenge the way we may interact with them. We may find friends outside of your roommate or hall mates because of scheduling times. There are times you won't be able to eat dinner or lunch when they eat dinner, or go to the gym when they go to the gym. This can cause students to find other friends that have a similar schedule. Fortunately, for my freshman year both my roommate and my hall mates had similar schedules to me so we were able to coordinate time to eat lunch and dinner.