Making The Most Of College

What choices can students in America make and what can teachers and university leaders do to improve more students' experiences and help them make the most of their time and monetary investment? Two Harvard University presidents invited Richard Light and his colleagues to explore these and other questions, resulting in ten years of interviews with 1,600 Harvard students. Filled with practical advice, Making the Most of College presents strategies for academic success.

Draws on years of research and interviews with undergraduates to explore the choices students make to obtain an enriching college experience.

The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America’s colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.

The perfect gift for high school graduates! College is a time when new and exciting horizons stretch out before us. We meet new friends and form relationships that last a lifetime. We discern what’s most important and what our ultimate direction in life will be. For those of us whose college days are in the rearview mirror, we long for recent graduates to love college and to make the most it. Often, we’re at a loss as to what advice to give our friends and family who are heading off to college—even though those years may well be the most consequential years of their lives. From Biola president Barry Corey comes the perfect guide to making the college years count. It touches on everything from college romances to making friends, from getting sleep to embracing boredom, from your inner life to your social life. In this slender volume, Barry Corey gives you wisdom that rings true but is rarely passed on. He serves up tips for survival, virtues to embrace, ideas to think about, and habits to cultivate for an enjoyable and flourishing journey through college. After all, you will remember your college experience for the rest of your life. Make the most of it.

The bestselling author of How Children Succeed returns with a devastatingly powerful, mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the U.S.

Report of research into Harvard undergraduate students' attitudes and satisfaction with their academic and social life.

Making the Most of Your College Education demonstrates that in order to be more competitive and marketable in the workplace, it is necessary to partake of the myriad opportunities the college/university environment holds. This invaluable guide, rich with anecdotes from students across the nation, presents the many overlooked and underutilized resources that college campuses offer. It illustrates how learning begins in, and extends far beyond, the classroom. This indispensable book shows you how to pack your college years with career-building experiences that can lead to graduate and professional schools clamoring to admit you; how to write an impressive professional resume; and how to gain keen entrepreneurial skills, an investment portfolio, and multiple job offers.

Contains advice from students on how to make the most of the college years, discussing money, roommates, orientation, grade point averages, how to choose courses, note-taking, partying, and other topics.