The sense of lost at university

When students enter college, they all have high hope. Time in college is probably the most exciting in their lives with new friends, new professors, new things to learn and new skills to develop. However after a year or two, some students feel a sense of lost, losing their direction and motivation. Some even ask whether go to college is the right decision and few even consider quitting.

The sense of “lost” among second or third year students is very common in every university. Some cause by stress or studying pressure but the root cause is usually “hidden” that most students do not know why. A student told me: “How can I continue to study when I have no more motivation?” Another second year student admitted: “It happens so fast, suddenly I feel tired with no sense of direction after doing well in my first year. I do not know what to do now.” While some students come and talk to me, many do not. Maybe they do not realize that they have problems, as this sense of “losing direction” is not clear until it become a major problem. The most common symptoms are feeling tired, losing interest in learning, and losing self-confidence.

After talking to many students who felt that they were “lost” I found that many of them do not have a career plan. They follow others to go to college but do not have a clear direction about their education. After go through several classes they suddenly feel “Lost” because they do not have road map to guide them toward their goals. Many told me that they expect to get a degree than finding a job but the fact is they do not have a definite career plan. A student said: “I expect to get a job after graduated but I do not know what kind of job that I will get so any job would be fine.” He also admitted: “I really do not know what to do with my life.” This “sense of lost” is part of a maturing process when they become adult and suddenly facing the burden of the “real world”. Even they do well in class but losing the motivation is a difficult problem to deal with. After talking to several students, I found that many have “unrealistic goals” in life with no substantial logic to support such as “I will get good job because I have a college degree” or “I will make a lot of money because I study Information technology.” Suddenly they realize that there are unemployed college graduates; or without knowledge and skills, they will not get a job, then their “dreams” vanished. At the same time, they are facing increasing studying pressure from school so they feel “lost” with no more motivation to help them to solve the problem.

Many teachers do not know how to handle this situation so they let students “float” from one class to another until the problem become severe. When students have no motivation to study, their performances drop, they fail classes and some quit school. Several professors told me that their job is to teach not to solve problem for students but “lack of motivation” is part of the teaching guidance that professors must do. It is the job of professors to provide advices, guidance to help students with their motivation, decision making, and recognize the skills they have learned and apply them. The “sense of lost” issue is often rooted in the bad choice when they enter college without a clear direction, without a well-defined career plan. After a year of studying, they realize that what they choose to study may not be what they want in life so they feel lost or they do not know what they want at that moment.

If the students lose motivation to study, it is important to take a corrective action before the problem is getting worst. If students “feel lost” because they cannot keep up with the class, the easiest solution is to place them in another lower level class to rebuild their foundation. Many universities often allow students to retake the course or transfer them to lower level classes but it often makes the students feel bad as they have failed. It also does not solve the root cause of the problem, which is not the ability to learn but the losing direction.

In the past seven years, I have designed a specific “remedial course” to help students that have “a sense of lost”. The course lasted about 4 weeks, three time a week but taught in the evening with the goal to “lift students back” to their standard level of learning. Since the root cause is the “losing of direction”, I start with career exploration discussions in the first week to help students learn more about themselves. By learning about their own interests and preferences, they can reconnect with the reality, improve their decision-making and understand certain career options through career planning activities. When enter college, many students are facing many career options but they may not take time to explore them in depth so they just select one based on their friends or family's choices. That may not be what they want or fit their interest so I help them to take time to explore several options in order for them to make informed decisions for themselves. By the end of the first week, they must develop a detailed career plan with realistic career goals. They are allowed to select the career that meets three conditions: their preference their family's expectations; and the job market opportunities. After the students make decision on what to do, they must develop a career plan with detailed step by step for each course that they will take, each step has a corresponding realistic goal that they should achieve.

Once complete their career plan, they will spend the next three weeks to relearn what they have missed in their regular courses. After complete, they can return to their regular class as nothing has happened. Most students told me that the four special weeks in “remedial class” really helping them to understand their educational direction, set realistic goals, refresh their knowledge and many are motivating to study again. Among these students over 80% of them return to the same fields of study that they selected, many graduated and do well in their career.

The more I work with these students, the more that I realize that career planning is essential for all college students. I recommend that ever university should develop a career planning workshop at the beginning of the school year to help students to select the right fields of study that fit their interests and strengths and set their educational goals realistically. By having a well-established career plan to guide students in their education journey, the school can avoid the problem of students losing their sense of direction in mid-year that impact their motivation to learn. When students are no longer motivated, school need to take corrective action early so recovery can be quick and students' lives do not have to deteriorate to the sense of desperate and failure.

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University

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