Freshman Connection students perform just as well academically as students admitted in the fall, according to a university study.
While minor differences appeared between regular students and students in the Freshman Connection program in terms of retention, academic probation and honor roll rates, the Office of Extended Studies report shows both groups perform similarly once they get to college.
“Our students are showing they can do the coursework,” Freshman Connection coordinator Anne Baum said.
Freshman Connection allows students who are admitted for the spring to take program-specific university courses during afternoons and evenings in the fall semester.
The study found about one-third of the students in both groups earned a spot on the honor roll, and the retention rate in 2006 and 2007 for students in Freshman Connection was actually one percent higher than it was for other freshman. Freshman Connection students also had a slightly lower rate of academic probation – 6 percent to 8 percent, according to the study.
Baum said the coursework and workload are similar in Freshman Connection courses, but the average class size for Freshman Connection is significantly smaller. For example, the Freshman Connection version of HIST 156: History of the United States to 1865 this fall had 29 students, according to Testudo, while the regular version had more than 100.
“It was a good program because it was a smaller peer group,” said junior government and politics major Andrew Nazdin, who was a Freshman Connection student during the program’s inaugural year. “The smaller classes gave the program a smaller university feel.”
Nazdin, who lived on the same floor in University Towers as other Freshman Connection students, said placing all the students together “built a sense of community.”
One area of concern for Freshman Connection is that students cannot easily participate in club activities because they often interfere with the evening- and afternoon-only classes the program offers. Baum said some students have expressed concerns, and administrators have been able to work around schedules to accommodate a Freshman Connection student’s extracurricular activities.
Though Nazdin regretted limited involvement in extracurricular activities, he said he enjoyed the later schedule.
“I got really good grades [in Freshman Connection],” Nazdin said. “What worked out well was that the classes were in the afternoon. I was able to stay up really late. The time schedule worked out a lot better.”
Nazdin added he wished the university would add more afternoon classes to the regular university schedule.
The program’s first participants graduate next year in the class of 2010, and Baum said the Office of Extended Studies plans on conducting more research as the program gets older by looking at how quickly students declare majors and what they do after they graduate.
Nazdin said he would probably enroll in the program if he had to do it over again.
“I got good grades, and met a lot of people who I’m still friends with,” he said.
taustindbk@gmail.com
