Part One

As a college student we are encouraged to get involved and join a club to help us be more active on campus. An idea that is commonly known is that when a student has a thriving student life they are able to gain very important skills that they will use throughout their life. These skills can help to improve how they juggle multiple different aspects of their lives in an efficient manner. As a first year college student I strongly agree with this statement. I am coming from an atmosphere in high school where I was extremely involved to an atmosphere in where I do not know anyone. I am also dorming on campus which means I am really on my own and stuck not really knowing anyone other than a roommate that I speak to occasionally. I have so much time on my hands that it makes it so easy for me to fall back into bad habits such as procrastination and being a bit lazy. My past experiences has helped me to see the major impact that student life has on students. As I conduct my research I am sure that I will run into some obstacles seeing as I am a first year student. This may impact how my research is conducted because I have not had the opportunity to connect with a lot of people. I am familiar with people within the dormitory but not with people on the north side of campus. I would like to speak to the director of student life but that may be a challenge because they may be very busy. A challenge that I may also come in contact with is having to figure out how to make sure my research is not biased. During interviews people can only speak about their own experiences and I may only be speaking to people who are very active on campus. The students who are not active would not be as easily accessible. When actively playing the role of the researcher I will do my best to manage my power by being aware of and respecting the boundaries of those involved in my research. I believe that when people are allowing you to ask about their lives it is really important to be considerate.  

Part Two

The social life on campus is something that many student have a hard time getting involved in. The cost of tuition is on the rise and a significant number of  students are struggling to stay in school even with the help of financial aid. Many students cannot afford to take the time to get involved on campus because they need the extra source of income to help contribute to the cost of tuition, cost of living, or simply just to the hundreds of dollars spent in textbooks per semester. According to the CCNY website the average cost of tuition at the City College of New York is about $3,365 per semester. This does not include the cost of dorming or textbooks. At the City College of New York there are over two hundred clubs available but students simply do not have the time to get involved.

Almost every student that I have come in contact with in my short time at CCNY has a job that they are going to right after classes or on their days off.  The article Understanding the Working College Student by Laura W. Perna says, “According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2007 nearly half (45 percent) of “traditional” undergraduates — that is students between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four attending college full time — worked while enrolled.  About 80 percent of traditional-age undergraduates attending college part time worked while enrolled.” When you look at the schedules of these students it is very difficult to get good grades, be involved in multiple clubs on campus, and work a part time job. These students would be running on barely any sleep. The rising cost of tuition makes it nearly impossible for students to get involved on campus.

There are the students who have to work twice as hard because they do not qualify for financial aid. Undocumented students are unable to receive financial aid at all and many of the times end up overworking themselves or are forced to drop out due to unforeseen circumstances. An article titled  A Dream Deferred: Undocumented Students at CUNY  by Carolina Bank Munoz speaks about an undocumented student who had to work extremely hard but ended up dropping out.  “Despite her 3.8 GPA, Luisa would have to attend a community college because she simply could not afford to pay full tuition at a 4-year college and she was not eligible for any federal loans. After working full-time and attending school part-time for three years, Luisa had finally saved enough money to enroll at Brooklyn College. During her first year at BC, Luisa’s brother was deported. She used her entire savings to bring her brother back to the United States across the U.S.-Mexico border and was forced to drop out.” This is the reality for many undocumented students and this greatly impacts their involvement in the social life on the campus. A lot of their time is dedicated to work and studying because they are just trying to make it through to the end. The students that decide not to go to work while in college often end up in debt due to the amount of student loans they forced to take out. The Role of Institutional and State Aid Policies in Average Student Debt  by James Monks states that, “A 2012 report, Grading Student Loans, by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York points out that, of the 37 million borrowers who had outstanding  student loan balances as of the third quarter of 2011, 14.4 percent, or about 5.4 million borrowers, have at least one past-due student loan account. Cumulatively, these past-due balances amount to $85 billion, or approximately 10 percent of the total outstanding student loan balance. The College Boards (2011) Trends in Student Aid reports that in the 2009 2010 academic year approximately 55 percent of public four-year college students who graduated from the institutions at which they began their studies graduated with some level of student debt.”   

When it comes to the rise in tuition students are encouraged to work while attending school which does not leave a lot of time for getting involved in student life on campus. Students may be more encouraged to get involved in clubs that are not as time demanding but also offer connections to scholarships. This club can raise money that is dedicated to the cause of giving back. The students that join will become members. The only requirements  is that each member has to help create one fundraising event per semester and attend one event every semester to qualify for prizes and promotions in scholarships. The events can be held every two months. The clubs can even offer prizes such as gift cards just for attending an event and they can be $20 visa gift cards or $15 Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards. That money can contribute to little things and may help to lessen the burdens of students just a little bit. A little bit of money can go a long way and many students may appreciate it a lot more than you may think. This simple change will not only increase the student involvement of very busy students but it will also give back to the community and help change a life.

 

 

Bibliography

MONKS, J. (2014). The Role of Institutional and State Aid Policies in Average Student Debt. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 655, 123-142. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24541753

 

Muñoz, C. (2009). A Dream Deferred: Undocumented Students at CUNY. The Radical Teacher, (84), 8-17. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20710479

Perna, L. (2010). UNDERSTANDING THE WORKING COLLEGE STUDENT. Academe, 96(4), 30-32. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20744590