W
hen I walked out
of
my
first
class
at
the
University
of
Michigan,
the
sky
was
dark and the streets I had
familiarized myself with during
the daytime were foreign. Out
of
stubbornness,
I
avoided
looking at the maps on my
phone and began to walk with
a new classmate. I tried my
hardest to look like I knew
where I was going and keep it
cool. As I anxiously searched
for a landmark that would send
me in the direction home, I
realized this transition was
going to be more difficult than
I imagined.
College is not easy, and
transferring can heighten this
feeling. Whenever I discuss
college with my older friends
and family, they tell me the
best years of their life were in
college. Since the beginning of
my college experience, I have
been confused by this statement.
How are these going to be the
best years of my life? How could
this be true for everyone? Is
there a secret that I have not
been let in on?
Last winter, when I decided
to transfer to the University, I
felt excited about the promise of
my future. On the other hand,
I also felt this great sadness as I
was leaving a community that
I had spent time and energy
developing. During my freshman
year at Michigan State University,
I found myself searching for
people that challenged me, lived
active lives and had similar
interests, but I had not joined
any student organizations or any
social groups.
During my final semester
there, I decided I was going to
get involved, and joined multiple
student organizations, got an
internship and worked in a
lab. Even with this new busy
schedule and social life, there
was still something missing, so
I went to Ann Arbor for a fresh
start. I wasn’t excited about
transferring, but I ultimately had
to find a way to make my college
experience the best for me.
I had two weeks to find
somewhere to live before I
moved to Ann Arbor, and a
friend suggested I check out
the Inter-Cooperative Council
at the University. In need of
housing, an instant community
and with little time, I signed up
to live in a house of 23 strangers.
After trial and error in my
social life, I thought this could
be a way to seek people and
community that was both active
and challenged me. Little did I
know this might have been the
most important decision of my
current college experience.
In my house, I finally felt like
I had a community to come
back to when I came home
after a stressful day of classes.
This didn’t happen overnight,
but occurred slowly over the
course of my first semester.
I want to make it clear that
this was probably the most
emotionally draining semester I
had experienced. There was no
instant transformation. It took
time, and I was impatient to be
happy with my experience.
Experiencing
depression
your first semester at a new
university is quite common,
as I learned in my positive
psychology course. According
to Steven Brunwasser, research
instructor
at
Vanderbilt
University
and
former
Psychology Ph.D. candidate at
the University, transfer students
living off-campus experienced
more
depressive
symptoms
than freshman and transfer
students who live on-campus.
The
depressive
symptoms
that the transfer students off-
campus had reported also did
not improve by the end of their
first
semester.
Brunwasser
concluded that this must be
from their lack of on-campus
support and resources. Transfer
students
living
off-campus
are not given opportunities to
engage with campus student
life and the social networks that
develop from them.
When I reflect on this period,
I would definitely say that there
were moments when I felt lost,
and I see these now as signs of
depression. I took comfort in
knowing I was not alone in my
experience. As the semester
came to an end, I entered
the spring still battling these
symptoms, but I had friends and
a community that continued to
reach out to me even after I left
Ann Arbor for the summer.
As a transfer student who
continues to live off-campus,
I was able to grow my campus
social network through my
cooperative
home
and
the
community of co-opers who
attend our University. These
were the individuals supporting
and helping me navigate my
first semester. My housemates
have connected me to most
of my closest friends, student
organizations and university
resources.
They
challenge
me to become an active and
involved student here at the
University of Michigan.
As
my
second
semester
begins
to
play
out,
I
understand now how to make
my
experience
happy
and
fulfilling. Whether it is filling
my schedule with activities or
student organization meetings,
practicing self-care or spending
quality time with my friends, I
am taking control of my college
experience. With the support
of
my
community,
co-op
housemates and new friends,
I feel comfort in the fact they
will be there for me as I take
control and create my college
experience. And I think that
must be the secret of making
these years the best.
If
you
just
transferred
or know someone who just
got here, I am here for you,
and there are other transfer
students who are experiencing
this
unique
path
at
our
University. My best advice is to
find your community and get
involved as quickly as possible,
because their support makes
our large University feel a little
more like home.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, September 27, 2017
REBECCA LERNER
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
EMMA KINERY
Editor in Chief
ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY
and REBECCA TARNOPOL
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns
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Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Anurima Kumar
Max Lubell
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Anna Polumbo-Levy
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Ali Safawi
Sarah Salman
Kevin Sweitzer
Rebecca Tarnopol
Stephanie Trierweiler
Ashley Zhang
L
ast year, I had what
could be called a mid-
college-life
crisis.
I
switched my major four times,
sliced my schedule down to
eight credits and decided self-
teaching was more valuable than
going to class. I even considered
dropping out of college.
While making a dramatic
exit excited me at first, I
decided to take a skeptic’s
approach to college. I began
to
research
alternatives.
I
found a vocal community of
college dropouts — or, as some
refer to themselves online,
“opt-outs.” I read the rants
of frustrated students that
sounded just like mine at the
time. Frustrated by required
courses, irrelevant material
and the slowness of academia,
they pondered leaving for the
fast-paced freedom of the real
world. They loved the idea of
learning, but wanted it on their
own terms.
A
cocktail
of
crushing
debt, competitive admission
standards and a shift in skills
needed for jobs in the new
economy has led many critics
to question the value of going
to college. With the advent
of online programs and the
development
of
alternative
credentialing,
students
now
have greater choice in whether
to attend a university or to go
to an alternative institution.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics
reported in 2013 that of the 30
jobs projected to grow at the
fastest rate over the next decade
in the United States, only five
typically require a bachelor’s
degree. To fill this gap, the
alternative
providers
have
swept in, promising students a
new credential to secure these
new jobs in less time with little
damage to your wallet.
These
educators
have
a
dynamic set of unconventional,
experiential
learning
techniques, usually promoting
personalized instruction, and
focus on teaching 21st-century
skills like online marketing,
coding and data analysis. Some
lambast the traditional college
education as deeply antithetical
to learning. According to Dale
Stephens, founder of UnCollege,
“When you go out into the
world, there’s no structure. … A
job doesn’t give you a syllabus.”
I caught up with one such
company, Praxis, when I began
questioning college. Praxis is
run almost entirely by college-
age opt-outs. Derek Magill, head
of marketing for the startup,
was a particularly enthusiastic
ex-Wolverine, a Classics major
who shunned Homer’s “Iliad”
to train opt-outs like himself
for jobs in the new economy.
Magill’s
frustration
wasn’t
sudden like mine — once head
of the University of Michigan’s
Young Americans for Liberty
club, he sued the school for
discrimination in funding of
student groups before opting out.
While conventional wisdom
holds
that
college
molds
you from a naive adolescent
into a capable adult, Magill
disagrees. He believes students
party too much, make fake
friendships and brag about
being chronically behind on
their studies. As he put it on
Quora, instead of forging their
way through their lives, “they
actively sought opportunities
to
avoid
class
and
patted
themselves on the back for
selecting the easiest classes.”
The
research
seems
to
back him up — his gripes have
actually been quantified. In
their
book
“Academically
Adrift,” Richard Arum and
Josipa Roksa found that 45
percent
of
undergraduates
at 24 institutions showed no
significant
improvement
in
a range of skills — including
critical
thinking,
complex
reasoning and writing — during
their first two years at college.
Derek wouldn’t be surprised;
this
was
just
evidence
of
students memorizing material
to maximize their grade point
averages
instead
of
truly
absorbing knowledge.
Yet
many
students
are,
rightly,
bound
to
disagree
with these sentiments. College
is often regarded as a time
of
self-discovery,
providing
a space to test out a diverse
array
of
interests
with
a
safety net to fall back on.
Unlike a job, where responses
to failure are harsh, college
lets students retake classes
and lean on the support of
similarly aged peers struggling
with the same issues. This
unique
opportunity
in
a
young person’s life should be
cherished, not attacked as a
naive false reality.
As disgruntled students tune
in to opt-outs’ messages, more
and more will drop out of the
system. Until then, however,
the opt-outs have an uphill
battle to wage against one of
the most ingrained societal
expectations of young people.
Agree
or
disagree
with
the opt-outs’ conclusions on
college, they do make valuable
points about the changing
nature of our economy. While
students focus on attaining
the
best
academic
and
extracurricular
experience,
they should dedicate equal
time to independent projects
that build their portfolios in
whatever they want to do once
they graduate. This could mean
coding a new app with friends,
publishing content online or
interning at a startup.
In today’s economy, students
must
build
experiences
independent of their college in
order to signal employability to
others — degrees alone won’t
get you a job like they did
for our parents. This doesn’t
mean get the cookie-cutter,
coffee-fetching internship at
an accounting firm — it means
build things in the real world.
A newbie’s guide to transferring
ELLERY ROSENZWEIG | COLUMN
Turn on, tune in and drop out?
LUKE JACOBS | COLUMN
Luke Jacobs can be reached at
lejacobs@umich.edu.
Ellery Rosenzweig can be reached
at erosenz@umich.edu.
M
illennials get dumped
on all the time — on
TV, on the internet
and at family gatherings. We’re
called lazy, unambitious, self-
righteous,
image-obsessed,
egocentric cybernauts who would
rather stare at our phone screens
than have a conversation. Maybe
some of this is true, maybe some
of this is not. If our generation
really is all of these things —
which would be terrifying for
the future of the United States
— I don’t think any column could
even remotely describe how
much trouble we’re in.
However, there is one clear
issue our generation faces,
and it’s not really our fault. In
fact, this problem was dropped
on us by baby boomers and
Generation X. The issue is
millennials have become so
accustomed to an on-demand
world that we expect success
to be on-demand as well. The
reason for this is that baby
boomers and Generation X-ers
ushered
in
a
technological
revolution that led to us getting
whatever we want, when we
want it.
Think about it: We grew
up — or, at least, have spent
the formative years of life —
with Netflix, smartphones and
Amazon next-day delivery. We
hardly had to wait until Thursday
night to watch our favorite TV
show. If we wanted to know the
size of Central Park, we didn’t
have to walk to the library to
check out a book — we have
computers in our pockets. And
for the last eight years, we’ve
been able to use our pocket PCs
to order a ride through Uber,
meaning we rarely have to wait
more than five minutes for a car
to take us where we want to go.
This “on-demandness” is not
a problem. In fact, it’s great; it
has revolutionized our economy
and led to hyper-growth in
several industries, from ground
transportation to grocery to
restaurant. The economics is
simple: It’s easier for people to
buy goods and services, people
buy more goods and services,
businesses make more money,
businesses use this money to
innovate and expand, businesses
can pay higher wages, people
make more money, people spend
more money. It’s a virtuous cycle.
I have no problem with this, and
neither should you.
But we’ve made the mistake of
transferring our attitude toward
Netflix — “I want to watch it now,
so I’ll watch it now” — to more
difficult, important things that
generations before us had to work
hard for. These things are not
on-demand.
Take, for example, a millennial
trying to learn calculus. If they
apply their Amazon same-day
delivery attitude to mastering the
Taylor series — a representation
of a function as an infinite
sum of terms — they might be
disappointed. Calculus is not your
coming-soon Amazon purchase:
You won’t get it that day or the
next day and maybe not even that
week or the next week. You have
to work at it, sometimes for long
periods of time. I think we look at
this as a foreign concept now.
We need to understand the
situation: Our generation has
lots of advantages, and, as a
result, we expect things to
come easy. We get frustrated
when they don’t. Inevitably, we
quit, and we never make the
progress we’re capable of.
This isn’t good, but it doesn’t
mean we’re lazy, pretentious or
unaspiring. It doesn’t mean we
don’t care about people or hate
talking to others. We just need
to collectively realize a simple
fact: things get better if you
work at them. Most of the time,
success won’t come right away.
It’s not your Uber ride — it isn’t
one minute away. This requires
understanding that we are not
going to score a touchdown
on every play. But if we can
move the ball down the field
every time, if we can get a little
better every day, eventually
we’ll get somewhere.
An imperfect but somewhat
illuminating illustration of this
on-demand attitude came in 2008,
when Barack Obama ascended to
the presidency, partly because
optimistic millennials supported
him. Obama, armed with his
hope-and-change
rhetoric,
won 66 percent of the vote in
the
below-30
demographic.
Come Inauguration Day, the
American
people
(especially
hopeful millennials) anticipated
near-immediate change amid a
financial crisis, two wars in the
Middle East and the impending
collapse of the U.S. auto industry.
It didn’t come, at least not
right away. And though there
are many variables that could
have affected the following
statistic,
it’s
worth
noting
that 60 percent of millennials
supported Obama in 2012 —
a high number, sure, but a
noticeable drop-off from four
years earlier, when we thought
success would be immediate.
Again,
this
example
is
inexact. The precise reasons
for Obama losing millennial
support are hard to pin down.
But my overarching point —
that we too often hold the false
belief that achievement is a
one-step process — has been
echoed by the former president
himself. On “The Daily Show”
in 2010, Obama modified his
famous slogan: “Yes, we can,”
he said, before adding, “but it is
not going to happen overnight.”
Millennials
should
heed
this modification. We can keep
watching Netflix and using
Uber, but we can’t transfer
that same on-demand attitude
to real life, where hard things
don’t come easy. We just need
to keep moving the ball down
the
field.
Eventually,
we’ll
score a touchdown..
BILLY STAMPFL | COLUMN
Drop the on-demand attitude
Billy Stampfl can be reached at
bstampfl@umich.edu.
NIA LEE | CONTACT NIA AT LEENIA@UMICH.EDU