Essential College Experience with Readings

Two retired professors from the University of South Carolina provide a college roadmap for incoming freshmen and suggest strategies for managing time, learning to think critically, participating in class, reading textbooks, taking tests, navigating the library, and staying healthy. Each chapter ends with personal journaling ideas and two readings. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

John N. Gardner brings unparalleled experience to this writing partnership for American higher education's authoritative text for first-year seminar courses. John is the recipient of his institution's highest award for teaching excellence. He has 25 years of experience directing and teaching in the most respected and widely emulated first-year seminar in the US, the University 101 course at the University of South Carolina. John is universally recognized as one of the country's leading higher educators for his role in initiating and orchestrating an international reform movement to improve the beginning college experience, a concept he coined as "the first-year experience". He is the founding executive director of two very influential higher education centers which support campuses in their efforts to improve the learning and retention of beginning college students: the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina (sc. edu/fye), and the Policy Center on the First Year of College in Brevard, N. C. (fyfoundations. org). And the experiential basis for all of his work is his own miserable first year of college on academic probation, an experience he hopes to prevent for many of this book's readers.

A. Jerome Jewler is a best-selling author, educator, and friend to students. A distinguished professor emeritus of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies as well as co-director of the University 101 first-year seminar at University of South Carolina, Columbia, Jewler has guided advertising students through the creative and writing processes and has helped hundreds of new studentsdetermine their goals. As University 101 co-director, Jerry planned and conducted training workshops for first-year seminar instructors, has won a Mortar Board award for teaching excellence, and was recognized as USC advisor of the year and nationally as the Distinguished Advertising Educator in 2000.