Spring Break
Transition from orientation to graduation: A view from a seminar instructor
Susan Clemens: Lecturer of History
Issue date: 9/27/07 Section: Focus
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When The Weekly staff asked me to share my thoughts on the changes I observed in students from first-year seminar to senior year, a film-like memory loop of seminar students and advisees played in my mind. Faces and events piled up after ten years of teaching first-year seminars, and I wondered how I, often an outside observer, could categorize and analyze the array of wonderfully unique students that I have known at Muhlenberg. So these reminiscences are merely that and not anything more scholarly.
I am struck during Orientation Weekend by body language of students some of whom look closed and wary. Others claim an easy leadership; a few I doubt will stay, while some observe their classmates from a quiet but interested distance. Very few students initially display many of their identities. Muhlenberg students seem to know that college is the perfect time to reveal constructive and conceal less useful elements of self. The four years here allows everyone the freedom to explore new ways of being. It is perhaps the most purely free time of life where myriad choices are offered and each student can shape the contours of his/her own future.
After a brief period of surprising and sharp homesickness, whether it is admitted or not, students begin to lose their look of isolation and interact in more collegial manner with each other. Some seminar groups become four year friends and still keep in contact. The fall seminar group I taught in 2001 was just getting comfortable with each other when the September 11th attack occurred. One of the students had a family member who was lost in the attack and the compassion and support given to her by her classmates resulted in a true sense of community among that group that has lasted beyond their four years at Muhlenberg. The maturity and individual achievements of that class impressed me as I observed them individually through their four years at the College.
After the mentorship of first-year advising, I sometimes get the chance to have former advisees in a history class, but mostly all I can do is observe from a distance. Some changes I see or hear about from students are truly exciting. Students who connect to the local communities through volunteer opportunities develop a keen understanding of the responsibility that comes with privilege. Students who have pursued leadership rolls know the burden of making decisions that affect the lives of peers. I hope students who make unwise choices grow from the effort required to rectify them. I hope everyone is learning which types of people bring out their best qualities and can find those people as life friends or partners. I see a pleasing sophistication of style and substance in students who opt to study abroad or spend a semester in Washington, DC when they return. Students who complete research, who write an honors thesis, who have the privilege to go to an undergraduate conference or present a paper at a conference all gain a quiet confidence from the experience.
I am struck during Orientation Weekend by body language of students some of whom look closed and wary. Others claim an easy leadership; a few I doubt will stay, while some observe their classmates from a quiet but interested distance. Very few students initially display many of their identities. Muhlenberg students seem to know that college is the perfect time to reveal constructive and conceal less useful elements of self. The four years here allows everyone the freedom to explore new ways of being. It is perhaps the most purely free time of life where myriad choices are offered and each student can shape the contours of his/her own future.
After a brief period of surprising and sharp homesickness, whether it is admitted or not, students begin to lose their look of isolation and interact in more collegial manner with each other. Some seminar groups become four year friends and still keep in contact. The fall seminar group I taught in 2001 was just getting comfortable with each other when the September 11th attack occurred. One of the students had a family member who was lost in the attack and the compassion and support given to her by her classmates resulted in a true sense of community among that group that has lasted beyond their four years at Muhlenberg. The maturity and individual achievements of that class impressed me as I observed them individually through their four years at the College.
After the mentorship of first-year advising, I sometimes get the chance to have former advisees in a history class, but mostly all I can do is observe from a distance. Some changes I see or hear about from students are truly exciting. Students who connect to the local communities through volunteer opportunities develop a keen understanding of the responsibility that comes with privilege. Students who have pursued leadership rolls know the burden of making decisions that affect the lives of peers. I hope students who make unwise choices grow from the effort required to rectify them. I hope everyone is learning which types of people bring out their best qualities and can find those people as life friends or partners. I see a pleasing sophistication of style and substance in students who opt to study abroad or spend a semester in Washington, DC when they return. Students who complete research, who write an honors thesis, who have the privilege to go to an undergraduate conference or present a paper at a conference all gain a quiet confidence from the experience.