Academic Progress: Factors That Affect a Student’s First Year Experience in College

The transition to higher education can be a journey of life changing experiences. These experiences culminate in factors that affect a student’s academic success. This can lend itself to areas of growth, change, and maturation that cultivate and stimulate the intellectual curiosity which motivate a student to succeed in college. Specifically, this study attempts to measure three factors that affect student success in college; these factors are the formal education of your parents, student work status, and access to the internet. The transition from high school to tertiary education is an expedition through uncharted territory for many first generation college students. First generation college students are defined as students neophyte to education beyond the secondary level and who do not have a kinship predecessor familiar with the college setting. This journey entails the idea of defining one’s life path. This academic odyssey affects the psychology of the student in the areas of growth, change, and maturation that cultivate and stimulate the intellectual curiosity that motivates students’ to succeed in college. Similarly, the student simultaneously makes the transition between adult and professional in the manner of learning-by-doing. In the labor market this is referred to as “on the job training”. College entails a different set of academic variables and environmental factors that were previously government funded (subsidized) or considered the status quo in education. This refers to free textbooks, free access to computer labs with internet, and school funded transportation such as school busses. These staple amenities in high school are now luxuries in college. A student has to provide for themselves what once was free. Does this affect their ability to succeed in their first year of college? The adjustment from secondary education to college in terms of academic progress and achievement is the interest of this design. Specifically, does a parent’s educational background play an unintended role in a student’s academic progress during their first year of college? Does the student’s access to internet affect his or her grades? Does a student’s employment status have an effect on student academic performance? These questions and answers to these experiences culminate in factors that affect a student’s academic success.