My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: hall mates, college culture, undergraduate culture, Welcome Week, United States, Movie Night (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

After nearly two decades as a university professor, the author (writing under a pseudonym) realized she was out of touch with her students. She didn't understand them. They no longer stopped by her office for consultations, no longer did assigned readings or participated in class discussions; they openly took naps in class, brought in food and drink, and behaved as though their education was of no importance to them. Looking for a way to close the gap between her and her students, Nathan enrolled in her own university as a freshman. Over the year, she gained an understanding and appreciation of contemporary college life. She found that many students who seemed uninterested in the whole idea of school were actually intensely curious and passionate about their education. They weren't the problem; the institution of learning was. This book offers insightful exploration of contemporary higher education and fascinating commentary on the ways in which the system has not kept up with the ever-changing needs of its students. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

My Freshman Year... is an insightful, riveting look at college life and American values. -- The Boston Globe

It’s anthropology at its best: accessible, illuminating, contextual. -- The Christian Science Monitor

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143037471
• ISBN-13: 978-0143037477
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #209,917 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertains and educates without delivering surprise, January 11, 2006

By	Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student (Hardcover)

Like other reviewers, I have misgivings about the ethics of "Rebekah Nathan's" undercover exploration of student life. Anthropologists may become participant observers but certainly her fellow students might feel betrayed.

At the same time, I couldn't stop reading. Few university press books combine academic discourse with readability as well as this one does. I was a college professor myself for 20+ years, but in the business school. And I didn't find a single surprise -- except, was Nathan really unaware of her students as much as she claims?

Several years ago, I remember a summer school student complaining, "You give too much work! Who has time for this? I have a wedding in my family and my folk dance lessons..."

Nathan's glorifies international students, who criticize Americans for shallow friendship and lightweight classes. But I taught international MBA students who said calmly, "We won't be in class next week. We're going sightseeing. It would be a shame to come all this way and then not see [a local attraction]." And some international students have less than ideal motivations -- not to mention disregard of female professors.

Nathan bemoans the lack of student participation. In the business school, we were encouraged to motivate students. I rarely had trouble getting students to participate: discussion groups, in-class activities and more.

But she's right about so many elements of student culture. I returned for my PhD when I was in my 30's (deemed the "older woman" by my professors - I wish I were kidding). So in a way I experienced some of her frustrations, including time management, conflicts, inexorable deadlines and arbitrary administrative policies. I also realized that students knew the university better than the professors; as a professor, I remember one student getting annoyed because I had no idea where the bookstore was.

And she's depicted student networks in a fascinating way. Students rarely made new friends after freshman year. Many retained ties to high school friends. And she's captured the businesslike way today's students approach college life: like a 9 to 5 job, she says, and she's right.

I would have expected Nathan to dwell more on educational values in society, which may account for a great deal of student lack of academic interest. In the US, the appearance of intelligence can disqualify us from jobs and political office. Corporate recruiters have told me, "I don't want the egghead A student -- give me the hard-working C+ student, who's also working and joining a fraternity." In what may be the most fascinating and revealing anecdote in the book, Nathan shares an exercise she gives her students. Okay, we know there are no witches. But if there were a witch in this classroom, who would it be? Inevitably, she say, the most motivated students get named.

Mostly I was surprised that Nathan doesn't discuss faculty evaluations from the student perspective. Many academic weaknesses, I believe, are directly attributable to the role of faculty as entertainers rather than educators. In fact, an adjunct at a non-traditional school acknowledged, "To keep this job I live and die by student evaluations. I've become an edu-tainer."

Fear of negative evaluations has led to some dumbed-down courses and discouraged faculty. Study after study shows students don't take these evaluations seriously, yet professors have lost tenure, rank and jobs when students express dislike, for whatever reason. That's why students get away with disrespectful behavior and why they rarely get C's, let alone D's and F's, even when they don't study. When faculty believe grades are correlated with evaluations, they take note. Students have even said, "I can't evaluate my professor till I have a sense of what my course grade will be."

I remember a student who wrote on his evaluation, "The course was no good. You had to read the book to pass." As a colleague pointed out, his evaluation -- rating me from 1 to 5 -- counts just as heavily as the scores of a motivated student.

And I remember teaching a class while I was still a graduate student. My students were commuters who worked full-time, often at demanding jobs. One young woman said, "I like this class. Can we have a party?" And we ended up with a potluck, where students brought in homemade dishes. (My rule was that I wouldn't cook.) It was an amazing experience, creating the kind of community Nathan yearns for.

Yet not a word about this event appeared in the student evaluations -- all that's real to the university administration.

Nathan mentions the gulf in understanding between students and faculty. But I think she overlooks some elements in systems and society that drive a wedge between those committed to intellectual enterprise and everybody else.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A required read for those who work in university settings, September 18, 2005

By	Ellen Levy (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student (Hardcover)

It is refreshing to see something about today's students that isn't simply about drugs, sex and alcohol. This book helped me (as a fifty something myself, who has taught the college level) appreciate many of the trials and tribulations that students today face. I'm heartened to know of a teacher who would take a year out of her life to understand her students by trying to do what they do. I liked that she neither whitewashed students nor condemned them, but rather kept an outlook of true empathy and interest in them. She seemed to really learn something as a teacher, and so did I from her account.

26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an Important Book to Read, September 7, 2005

By	Donald I. Siegel "Professor at Syracuse" (Syracuse) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student (Hardcover)

I urge potential readers to ignore the harping over perceived intellectual slights suggested by many reviewers of Rebekah Nathan's "My Freshman Year". The intent of the book was to help students in their college experience by informing faculty and administrators about the current student culture, both its limitations and its potential advantages to learning. As such, the book deserves to be read by all parents of college- bound high school students, college students, teachers and professors, and administrators interested in giving students the best education possible. I too am a college professor and find that the intellection aspirations of my freshmen are now different than my pedagogical expectations. Nathan's book provides at least some answers for the differences, which I rapidly am using to make my classes more accessible --while still providing students the content they need and deserve.

So, I am frankly astounded at many of the reviews I have here read, which center not on the content of the book, but on how Nathan got her information--by posing as a freshman to make students feel comfortable around her. As a physical scientist, I am dumbstruck that some social scientists and others think this approach was somehow "unethical." Nathan went to great lengths to avoid reporting things that might be construed to be improper, didn't report actual names, certainly was not "spying" (the intent to do harm or gain advantage over those in the dark), and even became friends with students for whom she obviously had great affection and respect.

I intuitively know that if Nathan's freshmen had been aware that they were being observed, they'd have behaved quite differently. Look at Reality TV to see my point, as one extreme of a continuum of "behavior modifications" when being watched. The great anthropologist Margaret Mead was even duped by the islanders, who knew they were being studied, in her classic investigation in the South Pacific.

Nathan did no harm in "My Freshman Year," but rather, did a great collective good for students and faculty alike. Read this book.