College Life Through The Eyes Of Students

The struggles and achievements of today's college students are thrown into stark relief in this fascinating account of how such students make meaning of their lives. Author Mary Grigsby uses the voices of students themselves to discuss how they view, adjust to, and participate in the college student culture of a large midwestern university and to explore what they think of their educational experiences. Topics include a look at a typical day on campus, student subcultures and the lifestyles they engender, whether college life conforms to the images and scenarios of popular culture, and student approaches to making it through college. Going to college has become the major coming-of-age experience for many people in the United States, and Mary Grigsby has provided a compelling, readable, and up-to-date account of this formative period.

In Through Japanese Eyes, based on her thirty-year research at a senior center in upstate New York, anthropologist Yohko Tsuji describes old age in America from a cross-cultural perspective. Comparing aging in America and in her native Japan, she discovers that notable differences in the panhuman experience of aging are rooted in cultural differences between these two countries, and that Americans have strongly negative attitudes toward aging because it represents the antithesis of cherished American values, especially independence. Tsuji reveals that American culture, despite its seeming lack of guidance for those aging, plays a pivotal role in elders’ lives, simultaneously assisting and constraining them. Furthermore, the author’s lengthy period of research illustrates major changes in her interlocutors’ lives, incorporating their declines and death, and significant shifts in the culture of aging in American society as Tsuji herself gets to know American culture and grows into senescence herself. Through Japanese Eyes offers an ethnography of aging in America from a cross-cultural perspective based on a lengthy period of research. It illustrates how older Americans cope with the gap between the ideal (e.g., independence) and the real (e.g., needing assistance) of growing older, and the changes the author observed over thirty years of research.

What sources of inspiration help sustain teachers' commitments, motivations, and care for their work? How do teachers use their ideals to inform their practice and their learning? The author proposes that many teachers have images of ideal classroom practice which she calls "teachers- vision". In this book, Karen Hammerness uses vision to shed light on the complex relationship between teachers' ideals and the realities of school life. Through the compelling stories of four teachers, she reveals how eacher educators can help new teachers articulate, develop, and sustain their visions and assist them as they navigate the gap between their visions and their daily work. She shows us how vision can illuminate those emotional and passionate moments in the classroom that enrich and enliven their work as teachers, explain what teachers learn about their students, their teaching, and their schools, and reveal why some teachers choose to stay in teaching and others leave the profession.

On the heels of his New York Times bestselling Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Rob Lowe is back with an entertaining collection that “invites readers into his world with easy charm and disarming frankness” (Kirkus Reviews). After the incredible response to his acclaimed bestseller, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Rob Lowe was convinced to mine his experiences for even more stories. The result is Love Life, a memoir about men and women, actors and producers, art and commerce, fathers and sons, movies and TV, addiction and recovery, sex and love. Among the adventures he describes in these pages are: · His visit, as a young man, to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion, where the naïve actor made a surprising discovery in the hot tub. · The time, as a boy growing up in Malibu, he discovered a vibrator belonging to his best friend’s mother. · What it’s like to be the star and producer of a flop TV show. · How an actor prepares, for Californification, Parks and Recreation, and numerous other roles. · His hilarious account of coaching a kid’s basketball team dominated by helicopter parents. · How his great, great, great, great, great grandfather may have inspired everything from his love of The West Wing to his taste in classic American architecture. · His first visit to college, with his son, who is going to receive the education his father never got. · The time a major movie star stole his girlfriend. Linked by common themes and his philosophical perspective on love—and life—Lowe’s writing “is loaded with showbiz anecdotes, self-deprecating tales, and has a general sweetness” (New York Post).

Looking to jumpstart your GPA? Most college students believe that straight A’s can be achieved only through cramming and painful all-nighters at the library. But Cal Newport knows that real straight-A students don’t study harder—they study smarter. A breakthrough approach to acing academic assignments, from quizzes and exams to essays and papers, How to Become a Straight-A Student reveals for the first time the proven study secrets of real straight-A students across the country and weaves them into a simple, practical system that anyone can master. You will learn how to: • Streamline and maximize your study time • Conquer procrastination • Absorb the material quickly and effectively • Know which reading assignments are critical—and which are not • Target the paper topics that wow professors • Provide A+ answers on exams • Write stellar prose without the agony A strategic blueprint for success that promises more free time, more fun, and top-tier results, How to Become a Straight-A Student is the only study guide written by students for students—with the insider knowledge and real-world methods to help you master the college system and rise to the top of the class.

Even as the number of students attending college has more than doubled in the past forty years, it is still the case that nearly half of all college students in the United States will not complete their degree within six years. It is clear that much remains to be done toward improving student success. For more than twenty years, Vincent Tinto’s pathbreaking book Leaving College has been recognized as the definitive resource on student retention in higher education. Now, with Completing College, Tinto offers administrators a coherent framework with which to develop and implement programs to promote completion. Deftly distilling an enormous amount of research, Tinto identifies the essential conditions enabling students to succeed and continue on within institutions. Especially during the early years, he shows that students thrive in settings that pair high expectations for success with structured academic, social, and financial support, provide frequent feedback and assessments of their performance, and promote their active involvement with other students and faculty. And while these conditions may be worked on and met at different institutional levels, Tinto points to the classroom as the center of student education and life, and therefore the primary target for institutional action. Improving retention rates continues to be among the most widely studied fields in higher education, and Completing College carefully synthesizes the latest research and, most importantly, translates it into practical steps that administrators can take to enhance student success.