Retention of students coming to a new collegiate environment is a challenge not just in 
sustaining their academic interest, but in providing a convivial environment and giving the students what they need to become a part of the college community. The first term of the students is absolutely crucial in giving them their first impression of college life. Unfortunately, most institutions persist in giving long-drawn out orientation programs which do not help students gain the firm footing they need to deal with the tumultuous first few days of life in college.
The Problem
School orientation programs, in general, follow a set pattern – in the first few days, all the students gather for a large meeting, where a series of administrators or facilitators attempt to provide them all the information they’d need to get through their first term. However good their intentions might be, their desire to be as comprehensive as possible, coupled with their efficiency constraints, means that the entire experience fails at multiple levels.
The students are generally not able to express their doubts and concerns or be given any kind of individual attention, since they are being treated and regarded as a large collective; this adds to their feeling of nervousness, which is already contributing to their stress. The nature of the event, especially as a one way interaction between the people on the stage and the collected students, does not provide them with the kind of advice they need, nor does it ease them into breaking barriers for social interaction with either their peers or the college’s administration or authorities.
Further, the vast amounts of information being pushed at them is often overwhelming, and it is only a very small proportion of students who would even recall or have access to the full gamut of information provided. Information on school education regulations, for example, for activities that are likely to take place 6 months hence, will have negligible value for students since very few will recall those regulations. Even for those students that do remember, the fact that most of that information will not be relevant in their immediate college life will make them file it away mentally as useless, meaning much lower recall subsequently.
The Solution
What is an effective school orientation program? One that accomplishes the following goals –
- Facilitating the integration of students into the college community;
- Ensuring that the required information for student life is delivered in a timely fashion;
- Building student enthusiasm for college and college life in general;
- Fostering their level of commitment to the college that they’re attending.
Experts have found that across the board, the method that works best at meeting these results is a school orientation program that is far more organic, interactive, and less condensed into a specific meeting or orientation event. When information is provided to new students at college in smaller, more relevant portions – such that the information provided becomes immediately relevant and reaches them ‘just in time’ for the use of that information – it is much better retained, and the information is put to much better use by the students. School education regulations, in particular, ought to be provided right before they would become applicable on students, such that it does not create confusion and tension at a time when they are completely irrelevant.
The makers and managers of such school orientation programs must commit themselves to provide this information not in a one-time school orientation, but over an initial time period. This will ensure that the information provided is likely to be immediately relevant to them. An orientation that covers the first term or year of the student’s life in college is tangibly and dramatically more effective in creating a more positive and less stressful environment for first time students. This enhances the school orientation program’s ability to retain the students and avoid them being overwhelmed, stressed, or feeling left out of the college experience that they had signed up for.
Learn more about both the content and process involved in creating high-impact Student orientations programs and creating a welcoming and productive collegiate environment for first time college students.
