Taking Faith to College

A big thanks to all my workshop attendees at the National Catholic Youth Conference this past week. I was expecting 100 and ended up with nearly 400! But everyone dealt with the full room and chaos with good humor and high enthusiasm.

Survival Strategy of the Week: Deal or Ditch

Roommate driving you crazy? Don’t wait around while something he or she keeps doing gets under your skin. If you can’t resolve things it may be time to get out but you owe it to yourself and your roommate to at least address the issue. Take action. Your room is your home away from home, it should be a refuge but for too many students it can be just one more thing that stresses them out.  Keeping your mouth shut, hoping your roommate stops turning on the lights when you’re sleeping, using your stuff without asking, or will magically quit being a slob, neat-freak, whiner, or whatever is a little silly right? If they don’t know their behavior’s bothering you, how would they know to change it? If your behavior was bothering them wouldn’t you want to know? (If the answer to that question is no then they might not be the problem but the topic of being a good roommate is another post.) It doesn’t have to be a big confrontation but it does take a little courage. If there are a number of issues, you may want to pull out that contract they gave you at orientation and suggest you and roommate go through it together.  Having trouble finding the right words? Talk to your RA. RA’s are there to help with roommate issues and will most likely have some pretty solid advice.

Have a roommate horror story or a tale of compromise reached? Comment or e-mail me at nora@bustedhalo.com

FSG article

an extended version of this article is available to publications and websites at www.bustedhalo.com/press

Sarah had always been a little shy. After two days at college, weepy and defeated, she called her mom, “I wanna come home, I hate it here,” she whimpered, “I just can’t do it!” She’d been excited to get away from home, begin college and experience a little independence, but an inconsiderate roommate and a tough case of homesickness were enough to take her out of the game.

Jason had decent grades in high school and scored a great financial aid package to a private college. He quickly learned to love the party-all-night lifestyle available on campus and was sleeping through his morning classes by week three. By mid-way through the semester he was in real academic trouble.

Tom met a girl on his hall in his first week on campus. He was pretty lonely and she was pretty cute. After one or two dates they became a couple and things got physical. Tom was really falling for her when all of sudden she lost interest and moved on. He ended up having to deal with a break up —and bumping into this girl all the time because she still lived in his dorm—along with everything else he already had going on.

Parents have always been concerned about sending their sons and daughters off to college, with good reason. It is a time of tremendous risk—emotional, physical, and financial—for parents and students alike. The freshman dropout rate has climbed to a new height of 30%BustedHalo.com’s Freshman Survival Guide – 25 Things Every College Freshman Should Know Before Classes Start is written to address the genuine concerns that parents have while giving students the tools they need to keep from drinking, sleeping, or skipping their way out of college; essentially, to get them through that crucial first semester intact.

Available for free at BustedHalo.com, the Freshman Survival Guide is a series of articles and interviews addressing the issues surrounding college freshman. In addition, advice from administrators, professors, counselors, campus ministers and mental health professionals, the Guide reflects the experiences of college students themselves who shared their advice.

Author Nora Bradbury-Haehl, is a twenty year veteran of youth work and has “seen-off” her fair share of young adults as they leave home and start college. One of the things she says she noticed pretty early on was that the kids who had trouble in their first few months in college all seemed to have the same kinds of trouble. “There were variations on the theme,” Bradbury-Haehl comments, “but mainly the problems stem from the fact that getting tossed into this new environment is overwhelming. Suddenly there are no limits and no one to keep them accountable; add to that the stress of college classes and activities, plus being away from everyone they counted on back home and some kids just shut down.”

For the past few months, FSG’s creators, Nora Bradbury-Haehl and Bill McGarvey, have been researching, interviewing and surveying hundreds of students, administrators, professors, education experts, psychologists and campus ministers for the first official Busted Halo Freshman Survival Guide book which will be published by the Center Street imprint of Hachette Book Group USA, to be available in stores in April, 2010. We’ve discovered that while there are many guides for getting into college, choosing a college, paying for college and getting good grades in college, Busted Halo’s Freshman Survival Guide Book will be the first to offer a holistic look into the lives of college students. The Busted Halo guide will be unique in combining practical advice on student life — like academics, relationships and lifestyle — with guidance on coping with the emotional and spiritual issues college students face.

Did our struggling students make it? Sarah joined a campus service group and found a great group of friends there. Her folks encouraged her to talk to her RA and after a little wrangling she got a new roommate. Jason blew a semester but academic probation and the threat of having to move back home was enough to get him on the straight and narrow. After a few weeks of crying in his pillow and a long heart-to-heart phone call with his sister, Tom was back on his feet and a little wiser for the experience.

With 30% of college freshman dropping out during their first year The Freshman Survival Guide has been generated for students by students to prevent others from being part of that number.