Introduction
Alfredo is a Mexican who moved to the United States four years ago with his family – mother, father, and his younger sister. He is a first-year student who has been enrolled in a nearby university so that he can attend the institution not far from home. The family has a middle income, and every member has the opportunity to get what they need. They pay much attention to their cultural roots and do not forget Mexican traditions and relatives whom they visit on a regular basis. There are no issues within the scope of relations within the family – everyone is ready to support each other.
Discussion
However, Alfredo cannot be characterized as a communicative and open person. He likes to reflect on his essence as a human being and enjoys philosophy to a great extent. Alfredo does not avoid people, but, usually, he does not know how to approach them. He fully recognizes the fact that the first year in the university will be challenging for him in this vein. Alfredo suggests that the environment in which he will exist will not accept him, and he will have troubles in the framework of social integration. He also doubts his cognitive skills – Alfredo supposes that his groupmates will be much better than him in this regard, given that they have been using English their whole life and understand subjects at a more advanced level.
Alfredo thinks that his cultural background and the fact that this is going to be his first year at the university are a reason to appeal to professional support. Hence, he is open-minded in this framework and ready to accept help when he needs it. Such a state of affairs makes it possible to assume that there is a necessity to develop a set of activities that will be useful for Alfredo to advance his confidence and self-esteem.
The first year of study at a university will require a serious restructuring of an established lifestyle from an enrolled in an educational institution. The environment is changing, and a person breaks away from the environment familiar from childhood. It is also important that you need to assimilate a huge array of new knowledge. All this leads to the fact that the student will live in conditions of constant stress. He will not be able to cope on his own with all this, so there is a possibility of a nervous breakdown. The first year becomes a serious test for students due to a large number of changes in their usual life, to which they must quickly adapt. The adaptation process affects several spheres of the life of yesterday’s schoolchildren and requires significant efforts and psychophysiological costs.
In an unfavorable set of circumstances and in the absence of timely psychological support, not all students can overcome the adaptation barrier, which directly affects their academic performance. In psychological terms, manifestations of maladaptation are low self-esteem and high anxiety. In particularly difficult cases, students may develop depressive disorders and suicidal behavior is often observed. All these signs of the destructiveness of the adaptation process make the professional and personal development of first-year students impossible (Levine & Dean, 2012). Students who have not coped with the difficulties of the initial stage of studying at a university are distinguished by indifference to studies and social life, deviant behavior, a high level of emotional stress, doubts about the correctness of the chosen professional path, difficulties in relationships with classmates and mentors, apathy and pessimism.
Hence, difficulties are natural for the adaptation process since a new living environment means new living conditions, new stereotypes of behavior, thinking, and relationships for newly accepted members of the community. Thus, the initial period of study at a university is associated with social changes, breaking old stereotypes, stressful situations, high anxiety, and internal tension. For a number of students, this can lead to certain difficulties and the formation of a deformed social role of the student. Here, the substitution of a real sense of adulthood with such behavioral actions as the freedom to attend classes and external forms of realizing one’s “I” (smoking, communication style) stands out.
The three messages that will be discussed during the first session will be as follows. The first is the need to develop social skills to integrate into the new environment. The second is the rationale for the importance of communication skills. Here one can highlight readiness of Alfredo to demonstrate his own style of behavior and establish contacts with people around him. Third, it is the significance of Alfredo’s cognitive potential – emphasizing his curiosity and readiness for active independent work to successfully master professional theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and abilities.
A comprehensive student assistance program during the first semester will include the following activities. First, these are individual psychological consultations, self-confidence training, team building (cohesion) training, communicative competence training, and personal growth training (Levine & Dean, 2012). At individual psychological consultations, the results of Alfredo’s tests will be discussed, as well as his psychological problems and questions will be identified. The purpose of self-confidence training will be the development of skills of confident behavior and self-acceptance. Teambuilding will focus on developing teamwork skills.
During the training of communicative competence, focused on the development of communication skills, the following tasks will be solved. This is an expansion of the possibilities of establishing contact in various situations of communication; developing the skills of understanding other people, oneself, as well as relationships between people; and mastering the techniques of effective listening. The purpose of the personal growth training will be the development of self-awareness, the skills and abilities of introspection, reflection, activity, and overcoming psychological barriers that prevent full self-expression.
Having started studying at a university, a first-year student is faced with the need to adapt to the educational process, which differs organizationally, methodically, and in content from the school education system. In addition, in the new team, it is necessary to adequately prove oneself and gain authority and respect. In addition, the chosen profession requires its internal acceptance by the individual and his efforts to self-education and self-education in terms of professionally significant categories. A newly minted student also needs to learn fundamentally different from the usual conditions for the independent organization of life, study, and free time. In the case of Alfredo, to this list of difficulties of the adaptation period, one can add the problematic process of building new relationships with parents due to the increased independence of the individual. In order to avoid all this, comprehensive psychological support is required for first-year students aimed at solving their psychological problems (Levine & Dean, 2012). The adaptation process can be optimized either by mitigating external influences on a person or by increasing its internal potential, which can be effectively facilitated by professional psychological support.
The theoretical basis and argument for the need for a formulated program may be that student age is a special phase of intellectual development. It is called the peak phase of the development of logical thinking, creative imagination, intuition, arbitrary selectivity of knowledge, semantic integrity, and awareness (Renn & Reason, 2013). However, unfortunately, due to circumstances, some students have obvious gaps, shortcomings, and disproportions in the development of the cognitive sphere. For example, this is observed in the types of perception, thinking, imagination, and memory, which, over the years of study, must acquire professional features and characteristics. These students, for successful professional development, need qualified support expressed both in theoretical and practical activities.
Conclusion
The condition for effective social adaptation is the preservation by the individual (Alfredo) of his individuality under any circumstances. Individuals need to learn to insist on promoting their own life values, priorities, moral norms, and rules that correspond to their picture of the world. A first-year student should not succumb to suggestions from the outside, which, of course, is an extremely difficult task, be able to reject the models of behavior offered to him and be guided by his own principles and beliefs that are true from his point of view. Adequate self-esteem, according to researchers, is one of the leading components of the required level of involvement of the individual in the society in which he exists (Renn & Reason, 2013). Important conditions for inclusion in society are emotional stability, a low level of anxiety or its absence, self-confidence, and a positive picture of the world, formed by an individual.
References
Levine, A., & Dean, D. R. (2012). Generation on a tightrope: A portrait of today’s college student (3rd Ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Renn, K. A., & Reason, R. D. (2013). College students in the United States: Characteristics, experiences, and outcomes. Jossey-Bass.