College 101: Starting Strong = Finishing Strong
Your habits during the first 3 weeks of college have a huge impact on your whole college career—and life!
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Your habits during the first 3 weeks of college have a huge impact on your whole college career—and life!
The well known adage that it takes 21 days to create a new habit applies very much to college.
Students largely decide their lifestyle in those first 3 weeks—who you hang out with, how much you study, how much you go to class, how much you party, how much you videogame, how much you lie to your parents, and how much you go to church.
Arliss Dickerson, one of the all time greats in college ministry, taught me this principle over 20 years ago in my days of college ministry at Arkansas State University. We started inviting student to church while they were moving in their dorm rooms—as we helped them unload furniture.
Unfortunately, thousands of freshman college students with good reputations, from strong Christian families, and a solid church upbringing will make some very poor choices in the first 3 weeks of this fall college semester. They won’t reap the consequences until semester’s end—but almost always, the seeds of destruction were planted in those first 21 days. The most common seeds that I see are; using drugs, binge drinking, late night partying at nightclubs, sexual activity, excessive videogaming, gambling, and gross irresponsibility.
These students often report that college life feels extremely carefree, adventuresome, and too fun to be real at first—then reality catches up with you. It shows up as academic suspension, financial problems, legal charges, pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Recovery is definitely possible, but digging out of the hole is toilsome.
I recently counseled a young man whose lifelong dream of going to medical school is probably over because of his legal charges stemming from poor choices that started the beginning of his freshman year. It’s sad because he would make a caring and gifted physician. But in today’s highly competitive culture “freshman blemishes” do count. Some students even prematurely decide after a bad first semester that they’ve had enough of the “higher education experiment” and never go back.
What’s troublesome is that I’m seeing more and more of these “first year college failures.” Numerous culprits are blamed—videogame programmers, overprotective parenting, the decriminalization of marijuana, immature frontal lobes, and even Al Gore—for inventing the Internet. My goal here is not to figure all this out, but make you aware of how important it is to create healthy habits in your first few weeks of college.
I’m continually perplexed as I sit with devastated parents each December who are totally caught off guard by their child’s predicament. One couple had planned a family celebration to honor their son for making the Dean’s List. Imagine their surprise when he came clean that his actual grades were 3F’s and a D.
I’m also amazed at how many of these students possess a “severely skewed” view of reality. They somehow think they’re capable of magically pulling everything together in the last few weeks of class. When it doesn’t happen the reaction is usually panic, despair, or blaming someone else. No matter the reason though—the consequences still remain.
Parents, what can you do?
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Talk to your freshman students in person or by phone frequently
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Watch where they spend money on credit cards
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Ask the hard questions
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Who are you hanging out with?
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What are your grades?
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Are you going to class?
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Are you going to church?
Students:
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Have someone as an accountability partner
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Go to bed before midnight on weekdays
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Stay completely away from drugs
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Get involved in a campus ministry
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For Heaven’s sake: GO TO CLASS!—get your money’s worth.
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Have a daily devotional
Not all those who start strong will necessarily finish strong—nor will all those who start poorly be deemed to failure—there are always plenty of exceptions. However, a solid first 3 weeks in your college life does give you a HUGE advantage—and likely will make a difference down the road.
Todd Clements M.D.
Adolescent & Adult Psychiatrist
Medical Director, Clements Clinic
Plano, Texas
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