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Andrew Diaz

Professor Batty

English 101

22 May 2019

Freshman Dropouts
College freshman dropout rates are extremely high “30% of college freshmen drop out

after their first year of college.”(Atlas, College)Their are a number of reasons why a student

would drop out of college. Lack of money,student could be unprepared from the transition to

college from high school or they could be unsure of their career goal,not getting the proper help

from the college they are attending. My solution to helping freshman get through their first year

of college is to take a type of counseling class and an introduction to writing class (english

72).Whether the student is positive or not of their career choice or if they feel like they classes

are pointless and a waste of time.

The first reason why the student should consider taking a ​counseling 20 is because 

they are “designed to help students gain an understanding of the process of learning 

and acquire the skills and behaviors necessary to be successful in college. This course 

provides an exploration of intellectual, psychological, social, and physical factors that 

impact lifelong learning, well-being and success”​(Carrillo, Sarah)counseling class is

because in college you no longer have a counselor available for you whenever you feel like

seeing one since you’ll have to set up appointments one week in advance to talk to a counselor

and that’s only for about thirty minutes to an hour, but if you take a counseling class you’ll have

a counselor that will get to know you better and you won’t have to set up any appointments

since you'll have time to talk to your professor in the class. I personally believe these classes
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will benefit the freshmen students since they are still adapting from the transition from high

school to college life. I can speak from personal experience saying that by talking a counseling

class I am now much more positive of the career path I want to take.Before I even took the class

I was in doubt and had no idea what I was doing in school wasting time and money I felt like

quitting a long time ago but I know that if I quit now my life will give twice as hard and that the

only way to be successful is to get my education and I’m glad a took counseling because I was

able to explore more career paths and gained more knowledge on how the california state

universities and universities of california systems work.

One reason why I think students should take English 72 is because “In this course, you

will write multiple essays, from 2 to 7 pages in length, begin to learn MLA style for quoting

outside texts and building bibliographies, practice complex sentences and editing skills, and

engage in a process of drafting, revising, and editing to successfully communicate ideas to your

readers.”(​ENGL 72)I​ t's designed to prepare the students for college level english and I feel like

a lot of the students feel like they are ready to take the leap from highschool to college, but I feel

like they should take this class so they could get a taste of how college level english is, because

I honestly felt the most pressure when I had to write a 5-7 page essay,needing to find reliable

sources to back up my claims and to express my thoughts throughout the essay in a way that

made sense.There are a lot of students who claim to know how to use MLA format but they

aren't using it correctly not only that but the amount of time you have to invest into making sure

your essay is the best it can be is insane even experienced writers can and will have trouble

now imagine freshmans that are transitioning from high school english to college level english it

sounds like its only going to end up with the student stressing out or dropping the class. Thats

why its important for college freshman to get some exposure to college level english.
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Colleges are blaming high schools for not sending their students prepared for the

transition to college. I feel like colleges should not blame high schools for sending students

unprepared to college instead they should offer more classes to help build the skills of students

instead of just throwing them in the lowest college level English courses that colleges have to

offer because their just sending students to fail and that helps no one not the school or the

student if anything it puts more pressure and stress on the students to the point where they start

to doubt themselves and think college is not right for them.I feel like colleges should make it

mandatory for college freshman to take a counseling class and a english 72 class. Both classes

are meant to prepare the student for success in college, english 72 prepares you for college

level english, and counseling helps the students prepare for what they will experience

throughout life and college now that they are actually starting their life because it's the most

important year fresh out of college and if the student does not feel like they can be successful

they'll leave and their life's won't improve at all I know it's not the schools job to baby the student

but they shouldn't let them fail because those are the adults that will run the future. People need

to be educated that's what college is for but colleges are failing them before they can even get a

chance to begin their life journey and that's why it's important that they make these classes

mandatory to incoming freshmen now.

There may be kids who think that they don’t need the class or the classes will be a

waste of time and money but honestly it’s not. Why do I think that because I was one of those

students that had doubt that these classes served no purpose and were a waste of time before I

even took counseling I had no idea what my career path was going to take me nor did I have a

career plan was I was just going to school,and I honestly thought I was wasting my time I
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literally was just going to get my general education classes out the way even though I had no

idea what my career path was going to be after taking counseling I now know what I want to

major in and I know what classes I must attend in order to be able to transfer to a csu and

continue my path to success and english 72 helped me keep my cool when I have to write

essays that are like 4-6 pages long.After taking these two classes my perspective of college has

dramatically changed and I honestly feel like I will be more successful after taking these classes

and I wish the same for other freshman like me no one should feel lost no one should feel the

amount of pressure I felt my freshman year of college.

To wrap it all colleges should offer counseling and english 72 because they are both

helpful classes for freshman to start out on, on their first year of college.Colleges should do their

best to make it mandatory for students to sign up for these classes so they can drop that 30%

percent of students dropping out the first year of college because their shouldn't even be any

students that drop out.

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Work Cited

Atlas, College. “U.S. College Dropout Rate | College Statistics.” ​CollegeAtlas​, 29 June 2018,
www.collegeatlas.org/college-dropout.html.

Carrillo, Sarah. “Counseling 20 Student Success Seminar .” ​Counseling 20​, 2015,

www.smc.edu/AboutSMC/Accreditation/Documents/2016/Standard%20IC%20Evidence/IC1_Co
unseling20_syllabus_SarahCarrilloSarr_Spring_2015.pdf.

ENGL 72: Introduction to College Writing and Reasoning​.

www.cerritos.edu/dev-ed/Placement/Descriptions/English72Description.pdf.