Journal #1

My Freshman Year: Friday, November 13, 2009

After two chapters into the book, we were surprised by how easily she is accepted by fellow students. She attributed this to her involvement in sports and her other extracurricular activities. Being an anthropologist gave Nathan a different outlook on the research that she recorded at AnyU. She compares and contrasts the anthropologist outlook to her student life outlook. This surprised us by how quick she caught onto the college life and the college norms. We think it’s important that she also interviews and has students keep a daily diary, because being over 50 years old gives a person a different perspective, and because hers isn’t always going to be valid.
Coming into the book, we all thought that Nathan would not be accepted as quickly or assimilate so well into the modern day college life. We assumed that it would take Nathan longer to understand the thought process, time management, and academic skills college students use today. At the same time, Nathan had the assumption that she would immediately see some patterns and commonalities in all the students but she quickly found out that there are so many different choices that students are faced with. It is a good thing that she enrolled for a whole year to get a good grip of the college atmosphere and what students go through. Going into this research Nathan had previous researchers’ ideas and observations to base hers off of. Throughout the text you see her referencing and confirming or contradicting this other research.
Because of Nathans job title the reader feels that Nathan has the authority to make these assumptions based off her research. Besides giving statistical information she also conveys personal stories that add to the overall quality of the book. Written from her point of view and from those of students she addresses a wide variety of people that could be the audience of this book.
We are just getting over the introduction and are looking forward to more specific interviews, incidences, and anecdotes. It would be interesting if Nathan, as she drives deeper into the college life, started comparing modern day to when she went to college in her teens. Maybe she can find some patterns of it being harder or easier for students to graduate.
Besides providing statistics, studies, and interviews, there really is no other way to objectively state facts about the “average” college life, because there are so many different variations. This frustrates Nathan, which is understandable, because she wants her information and observations to be considered as valid as possible. One thing she does find consistent, and references a lot in chapter 2, is the layout of the dorm halls, bulletin board displays, and personal expression of pictures and such on the doors of rooms. This was understandable, and did provide some truthful insight about the modern day college student. Everyone in our group could relate to, or agreed with, common themes she noted on doors and bulletin boards. Perhaps this is a foreshadowing of how the book is going to be structured; while Nathan can provide mostly personal experience stories and students’ opinions as her only real source of information relating to what she wants to talk about, the only facts in this book besides statistics are going to be about things that Nathan can physically see and describe.
As stated before, we are really excited to see how Nathan structures the book. She has a lot of subjects to cover, and even more topics she wants to talk about. Our group was wondering about the size of the book, it seems kind of small to write an all-inclusive book about college life. We wonder if Nathan had a lot more to write and say, but decided against it, to not drag on and bore the reader or something. Either way, we hope that she addresses such subjects that will confirm or deny that college life has changed for the better or the worse, and whether or not it can be discussed that students nowadays are busier or not, and have it harder or easier.