College Participation

One of the best things we can do after high school is to continue our education by going to college. During a high school career fair, students may find themselves asking: “Why is it important to go to college?” Well, it is important because at college, students try new things, meet new people and expand their knowledge of the world. Higher education also improves their chances of having the lives and the job they always wanted. However, it is not as easy as they think. Student can get distracted by different things in college which can prevent them from success and achieving their goals. In most cases, lack of class participation is one of the factors that could directly affect their education and increase their chances to quit college. Boring instructors and time management could be the obstacles for students to not participate in class’s activities.

“My class is so boring”, “My instructor talks all the time”, “I fall asleep in my class”… are popular sayings from college students. Why should students go to class when everything from the lectures can be found easily from the book? Because when the lectures are so boring and the instructors basically just represent the information from the book in the different type, students would think that it is not necessary for them to go class, so they skip. Moreover, there are instructors who just go to class with a mission: talk. They keep going on and on without any class activities for student to participate in. This makes class participation even harder for students who attend class regularly and have questions or topic they want to discuss about. As the result, students easily fall asleep during the lectures.

Next, time management could be considered as one of the biggest barriers which prevents students from class participation. Part-time jobs, friends and school activities can occupy most of the time if students do not know how to manage their time well enough. College students may vary where they come from. They could be high school graduate students or people who come back after years to have higher education in order to achieve their goals. But, they all cannot fully function as well as normal if they had to work until 12 the night before and then go to class at 8 in the morning. Since they have to earn money for tuition, their jobs occupy most of their time which they can spend on finishing their homework and preparing for classes in the next day. On the other hand, in college, students always meet new friends and new people, so hanging out with them will just be a part of student’s schedule. It can put them in trouble if they cannot balance themselves between spending time on school works and friends. It is even harder for those who are school athletics. It is impossible for them to be able to finish their homework and to prepare for class after hours of sport practices.

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