Education. What it is like being a university student - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Qualitative Research Project Qualitative Research Project [Institute’s Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Literature Review 4 Methodology 7 Results 7 Discussion & Analysis 12 Competitiveness 12 Social Connection 13 Coping with University Life, Environment and Surrounding 14 Self Motivation 15 Conclusion 15 References 17 Introduction No one can ignore the importance and significance of education that plays a vital, central, and crucial role for an individual in attaining his or her status, accomplishments, prosperity, and successfulness (Kumar, 2010, pp. 1-3). Moreover, the educational learning system, teaching methods and curriculum is coming under constant advancement and amendments as the world is developing and progressing, which is leaving a dramatic impact on the students’ achievements and progress (Dobert, Klieme & Sroka, 2004, pp. 153-154). Due to this reason, education has become one of the most significant aspects for an individual that leads the person to flourish and be successful in his or her life, and universities are of the dominant mediums that cultivate and enhance the professionals and skilled people of various fields. This can come under well elucidation from the example that numerous people graduated from universities have made magnificent contributions to the development of the society and culture of a nation (Imber & Geel, 2009, pp. 362-363). Education, particularly university life and education provides a student with a deep understanding, wisdom, insight and knowledge that helps them develop and enhance their skills and proficiency. However, a student encounters a number of concerns during the entire phase of the university life, which includes accommodation, study skills, language, culture, change, stress, motivation, integration, financial problems, and several other factors (Kretovics & Michael, 2005, pp. 3-5). Due to scores of reasons, university education plays an integral role in attaining the success for an individual and for the society on whole. In fact, this becomes the primary cause that the sociologists make deep and profound investigations about how the students lead their university lives. In this regard, the elementary statement of this analysis states: "What is it like being a university student?" Literature Review The topic of university life of a student has come under continuous discussions and arguments with many controversial results amongst the academic researchers, and sociologists, as each personality possess a different and diverse perspective on how the university life creates a difference in the attitudes and behaviors of the students. The section of the literature review portrays the studies and investigations carried out in the past by various researchers and sociologists to highlight the facts and concerns that the university students come across during their university lives. From a wide range of research studies, the university education in general has come under consideration as one of the imperative features for the success of an individual (in terms of skills, personal development and wide range of knowledge), however, several people also negate to this opinion and provide their own set of reasons (Ague, 2008, pp. 1-2). According to some schools of thoughts, knowledge is the fundamental factor that leads to success and an individual can attain this knowledge even outside the university as well. This is because in the epoch of technological innovations, which has developed at an unprecedented rate, one can gain knowledge through various ways and means. One of the most common and widespread ways of acquiring the knowledge is the platform of internet and online educational programs (Selwyn, 2011, pp. 5-7). While looking at the positive aspects of the university education, extensive studies also highlight the fact that university education and environment provides the students with a broad opportunity to develop social interactions and enhance their social skills of communication with other people of different background, culture, ethnicity, and various other factors. This is because students through a number of sources (such as clubs, associations and many more) come on a shared platform to perform an activity or task, which makes them interact with students belonging to diverse cultures and backgrounds. Sharing of information on mutual basis leads to enhanced communication skills and diverse social networking groups (Vye, Welch & Scholljegerdes, 2007, pp. 66-69). Another positive aspect that has come under observation that the students face during their university life is the career networking. This means that universities normally help the students to get summer jobs or internships, through which they can develop their network with their capabilities and skills for their careers at a later stage (after graduation from universities) (Chen, 2006, pp. 25-26). Numerous sources of information have revealed the fact that the teachers and peer students play a pivotal function in making the students become accustomed and adapt to the environment and the culture of the university. Hence, these bodies ought to have a positive approach that can help the students cope-up with no trouble while during their studies at the university (Switzky, pp. 101-103, 2004). Studies have also demonstrated that finding the time to study is one of the common and universal problems that the students deal with. This is because many of the university courses require much more time, effort, and involvement than those in high schools. In addition, in the latter years of the university life, the students in general have to work as well as study in order to finance their education, housing, and other necessities. Therefore, finding the time to study and meeting the deadlines in both personal and academic lives is one of the essential concerns for the students that they come across (Gatrell, 2006, pp. 6-10). Stress has come under observation as one of the leading and prevalent elements that the students experience particularly due to the new surroundings and atmosphere that even includes the learning process which is not the same as before. The behaviors, eating habits, emotional features and/or perceptions of the students comes under direct and adverse impact due to stress (Olpin & Hesson, pp. 1-10, 2009). Financial constraints and money issues have come under consideration as a central consent faced by students that have come under emphasis though numerous research studies. It has come to vision that students normally come across the money issue because they have to fund their housing, nutrition, entertainment, and so forth for which they usually lack money, as being an international student they are away from their families and home (Lipson, 2008, pp. 265, 266). Independence becomes a big problem for many of the students during their university lives. This is due to the reason that many students have their complete dependency upon their parents (in terms of health, nutrition and other factors) as they are living with their families before they go to universities. The university life makes them independent such that they have to take care of their health, nutrition, and several other factors. Therefore, many of the students are not able to well cope with this issue of independency, which leaves an adverse impact on their personalities on a long-term basis (Andreatta, 2011, pp. 99-101). With reference to, the prior researches that have come under performance in the arena of university-life of a student to bring to surface the positive and negative aspects that students might encounter during their universities life. Therefore, it became essential to carry out a comprehensive and meticulous study to identify and discover what it is like being a university student. This research would bring to limelight the issues and concerns faced by the students in their university lives. Methodology The methodology used for the research to find out what is it like being a university student is the qualitative research methodology. This is because the qualitative research methodology facilitates in exploring the key issues, helps in understanding the phenomenon, and leads to solutions to the identified issues (Friedman, 2007, pp. 541-542). Qualitative research has also proved to be fruitful in this research as it led to accumulate an in-depth understanding about the perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, concerns, motivations, aspirations, and lifestyle that university students hold concerning their lives at the university and what are the reasons that govern their behaviors. This analysis of unstructured information was collected by informal interview sessions that were not based on structured set of questions; rather a more informal interview session came under practice with a small group of students who participated in the study. While taking into account, the sample size of the study, the interview came under performance with four students, as the qualitative research provides the most accurate results with focused and small sample group. Out of the four respondents, two of the interviewee was male and the other two was female. The age group of the total sample size was from 20 years to 25 years as the participant students belonged to the undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Results Taking into account the findings of the research, the research conducted was in the form of open-ended interview with four respondents (college students) that belonged to the age group of 20 – 25 years. The mentioned age group came under selection as the research intended to identify and discover what is it being like a university student, therefore, the respondents had to be university students of either under-graduate study or post-graduate study. The qualitative research included participants of both the gender in order to prevent the biased opinions and to have a comprehensive feedback about the university life from both the genders. Therefore, in this regard, two of the respondents were male and the other two were female. The biography of the students elucidates that out of the total participants, one student was a full time student and worked part time as tutor. The other two participants were full time student only. Looking at the characteristic of living with family or staying apart from family, two of the participants lived with their parents at home. The third participant had a shared house as her living arrangement as she was an international student for post-graduate study. The interviewee when asked about the external pressures (from parents, school, or teachers) responded that he did not only have external pressures but also it was also an internal pressure, which he placed on himself, because of his interest to study at university. While considering the female interviewer, Sara only faced external pressure especially from her parents. Freedom and independence is another factor that has come to observation during the time of interview by all the respondents. Adrian declared that students enjoy and consider the facet of freedom and independence during the university life one of the positive, shocking, and good elements when compared to high schools. In addition, according to Adrian, social aspect (socializing to a greater number of people) has a connection with the level of independence and thus, he has greater opportunities to make different friend groups and to branch out those groups of friends. The same opinion was share by Rodrigo and Teresa as well, while he also added that grown up free time was not only limited to being social but also in terms of study. When the interviewer asked the students about their expectations meeting the current situations, Adrian replied that the workload was what he expected to be at the university level. However, the social aspect was not up to the expectations such that he expected the university life to be more fun and easy going with more relaxed time, but he discovered that dedication towards study needs and takes away most of the time. Moreover, Adrian also stated that other students are not able to cope up such difficult conditions as they are not prepared or groomed for it. Rodrigo and Sara both replied that the best part about the university was its learning of new ideas and the approach of teaching. The exposure was not a part of what he expected, as there was a lot of freedom to explore due to not having a strict curriculum. The choice of selection of courses was also one of the good aspects that Rodrigo liked. Nevertheless, Sara acknowledged about her learning process by the statement 'Like learning is fun!' Upon the question raised concerning the challenges that an international or foreign student encounters during the university life in comparison to the local student, one of the respondent answered that definitely the local students gets an advantage over the international student. Besides, he thinks that leaving home and all other ingredients of life is more complicated and difficult to adjust to the new environment and life of university. Moreover, he also states that the student has to become much more independent as he or she would have to oversee and manage not only the studies, but also various other factors such as house maintenance, clothes cleaning, meals preparation and so forth. In order to live up to and support all the things, the students ought to have a part time job as well. While on the other hand, Teresa, an international student loved her university life, as she was more independent and enjoyed her freedom being away from home and family. Moreover, this university life provides the student with lot more learning experiences. Furthermore, her field experience also helps her to great extent in her postgraduate studies due to which makes her university life much smoother. The financial limitation or constraint is rather not a primary and fundamental problem for the students who live with their families back in town when compared to the international students. Even though the students might be mostly financially independent, but they have a backup support. In fact, the family support releases much of the pressure from the students. Sara explained during her interview that she was used to doing much of the housework like cooking, washing, grocery shopping, and so forth, from before but the most challenging task for her was to cope up with the university things at the same time, as she did not manage her priorities. This non-management affected her health and she felt much stressed at many occasions, due to which she missed the deadlines of her university work assignments. Stress is one of the adverse effects of university life that she experienced. During the evaluation process, it has also come to observation that the international students normally experience the problems of accommodation and transportation (as expressed by Teresa in her interview). The assessment of the research has bring the fact to limelight that students believe that university plays a pivotal role in determining the employability of the students and above all the capabilities through which a student pass outs also leads to the determination of his or her employability. This has come under witness by one of the participant students. Quite in contrary, Rodrigo believed that although vocational training for both local and international students is essential, but the university degree is not meant to provide guarantee the job to any student. Furthermore, he reflected the fact that education and learning has a value in it, therefore, all of the focus must not only be towards the security of the job. Rodrigo also thinks that university does not present the idea that the sole value of education is measured in its ability to get a student a job. The reputation of the university is a crucial and critical aspect as their top priority list that the Adrian considered while opting for their universities; however, for three of the respondents reputation came under consideration as the second priority. The geographical location of the university is another significant element that three of the respondent students (predominately the local student) looked for as the first priority, as they did not wanted to travel to long distances. Parents and their prior experiences of university education also play dominant role for the students in choosing for their universities. Financial assistance or monetary incentives from universities in the form of scholarships is also a driving force that student deeply think about while selecting their university, and has come under observation as the only reason of study by one of the participant. Friends and other social networks from their prior experiences of word of mouth also plays a great role in determining which university to opt for, as described by Teresa. Few of the other findings have also brought the fact to forefront that university studies catch the attention of the students, as they are more interesting and interactive. Additionally, student also develops the skills of teamwork and learns to work in a group environment much more rapidly (indicated by two of the participants). On an overall basis, according to the perception of one of the students university merely teaches the social aspect of the ways to behave with other people. Furthermore, it enhances and enables the students to communicate and present the ideas in a much better way. According to Teresa, university life enhances one's confidence, communication skills, writing skills and openness and eliminates the factors such as shyness, hesitancy from the individual personality. It has also been an observation that the university life brings stability in the lives of the students, as they become grownups and focused in life that leads them to act in a mature manner. Discussion & Analysis The findings section has highlighted several issues and themes that rose during the interview sessions with the students, however, the discussion, and analysis would only incorporate a few of them. Competitiveness Competition is one of the areas that have come under consideration as one of the grave issues for the university students in their phase of academic years. The students are well aware with this competition from their earlier academic years as one of the participants have clearly mentioned in his interview that the years before entering into the university life creates a level of completion within your personality, which comes under explication from the testing systems used by schools that includes the rankings, and scoring. This scorings and rankings develop the comparison factor within the students with other peer students in the school (Harper & Quaye, 2009, pp. 248-251). However, the students in the beginning years of university normally lose their focus from doing well in academics, and the level of competition reduces amongst the students. This is because they students feel at ease due to non-ranking systems, which decrease the level of competition within the students. However, when the students get half way to their studies the competition again escalates amongst the students and they become focused in achieving superior grades from others. Additionally, the student also demonstrated the idea that the latter years of the university life makes them realize the value of the degree and education (Harper & Quaye, 2009, pp.224-228). This point of view has come under witness by two of the respondents of different genders. Social Connection Social connection is another imperative aspect that has come under consideration as vital and crucial amongst two of the participated students, in the survey analysis. Adrian declared that social connection is an integral factor for a student, as the teachers are not available for guidance at all times. Due to this reason, the students must have a strong social network or connection that they can take help, guidance, assistance, and support from friends at the time of need or queries (Wankel, 2011, pp. 5-9). For the modest and little help, it is essential to have a good social group on which one can fall back on. Additionally, social group or connection is also pivotal as it eliminates the feeling of isolation or loneliness within the student and good social group leads to have a good feeling of having company and friends within the classrooms as well (Wankel, 2011, pp. 5-9). Rodrigo also stated ' so the social aspect was very important as well.' During the interview, it has also come to observation that social interaction is more beneficial to the students who are more outgoing or extrovert in contrast to the introvert students, as they are likely to strike or keep up conversations to other people. The students with introvert personalities have to put more effort in interacting with other students. Adrian has also presented with suggestions that social connection and making a group of friends should be the first priority of the students when initiating their lives at the university. This would facilitate the students from not experiencing a daunting incident in the initial phase of their university life. Rodrigo also presented with his idea to be more social and have more interactions with people (both students and tutors), at the same time giving equal attention to studies. Coping with University Life, Environment and Surrounding It is shocking to proclaim that coping up, adjusting and adapting the university life, environment and surrounding is hard and problematic for the students particularly in the initial years. Two of the students in his interview have clearly exposed the fact that he did not find it easy to adjust to the university life initially; even developing the social networks was somewhat a problem (Wong, Wong & Lonner, 2006, pp. 18-20). According to the experiences of Rodrigo, he felt the university experience intimidating and frightening because of the huge number of students with different ages, backgrounds and various other factors. This different experience is difficult to cope up at the start of the university life, however, as time goes by, the students become more comfortable with the environment and enjoy (National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, University of South Carolina, 2007, pp.28-30). Therefore, he concluded with the statement 'You’ve gotta adjust to it I guess.' Teresa did not faced much problems in adapting to the university life as she was excited about this new experience and loved the freedom and independence from being away from home. Furthermore, the university life of postgraduate study also provides the students with a lot of spare time due to limited class schedules. Additionally, the environment and the atmosphere that university provides to its students (such as space where the student can work on their assignments) creates a level of comfortableness that helps in adapting well to the university life Self Motivation Self-motivation is one more theory that has come to surface during the analysis of the survey analysis (Santrock & Halonen, 2008, pp. xxv-xxvii). From the viewpoint of Adrian, it has come to observation that self-motivation, internal perseverance and dedication is one of the challenging tasks for a student during the university life that he or she comes across. This is because according to Adrian, 'It takes a lot of dedication and a lot of internal perseverance to keep going with your work when no one is really going to check up if you’ve really done the work.' Rodrigo also agrees to the same perception, because he affirmed that teaching staff in general do not exhibit personal interest in students' overall performances. Even though the tutors and teachers are present to help the students, but self-motivation is the elementary solution to it, as the students' have to figure out for themselves and their performances. In this regard, Rodrigo commented, 'I guess that freedom goes both ways. Independence, you gotta figure it out for yourself. Take control of; at least learn to manage your time and what you want to look at when.' Conclusion Education on an overall basis has come under consideration as the backbone to the development, growth, and progression of not only an individual but also the nation as whole. Additionally, empirical studies have also brought the fact to public attention and awareness that the students who live with their families during their academic years of university are less likely to face challenges in comparison to the international students who are away from their families, friends, culture, and other social groups (Lipson, 2008, pp. 265, 266). The qualitative research analysis has facilitated to great deal in understanding what is it being a university student. The vast shared experiences and concerns have enlightened various facts that the university students experience that incorporate financial issues, accommodation, transportation, coping up with university environment and many more. However, numerous positive aspects have also come to limelight such as social interaction and integration, learning experience, competition, self-motivation, and so forth. Nevertheless, on a general note, majority of the students strongly recommended every individual to opt for university education as university life provides each student with a whole experience of how to move ahead in the life. References Ague, P. E. 2008. Leadership, Communication, and Intentional Strategies and Their Effect on the Change in Assessment Practices at a Midwest College. ProQuest. Andreatta, B. 2011. Navigating the Research University: A Guide for First-Year Students. London: Cengage Learning. Chen, C. P. 2006. Career Endeavour: Pursuing a Cross-Cultural Life Transition. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Dobert, H., Klieme, E. & Sroka, W. 2004. Conditions of School Performance in Seven Countries. Copenhagen: Waxmann Verlag. Friedman, J.P. 2007. Dictionary of Business Terms. New York: Barron's snippet. 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