12 - Relationships

Building Relationships with College Instructors

What your instructors expect from you:

  • Be prepared and on time
  • Remain for the entire class
  • Do the assigned work
  • Listen and participate
  • Think critically about the material
  • Persist even when learning is difficult
  • Be honest, open, and sincere
  • Be self-motivated

 \n What you can expect from your instructors:

  • Grading you fairly
  • Providing meaningful feedback
  • Being organized, prepared, and enthusiastic
  • Being accessible

\

Peer Leaders

What you can expect from your peer leader:

  • Work as co-instructors or student mentors \n Selected because they:
  • Have good academic records
  • Have strong leadership abilities
  • Want to help first-year students be successful

\

Making the Most of the Learning Relationship

  • Most instructors are required to keep office hours
  • Make an appointment if you need help with a difficult topic or to discuss a problem
  • Instructors who know you well may write you letters of reference when applying to graduate school or for a job

\

Relationships with College Instructors

Understanding academic freedom:

  • Virtually unlimited freedom of speech and inquiry, as long as human lives, rights, and privacy are not violated
  • Also extends to students

Handling a conflict with an instructor:

  • Can ask for a meeting to discuss the problem
  • Can go up the administrative ladder if instructor refuses

\

Family Connections

  • Maintain family relationships throughout your college years

Marriage and parenting during college:

  • They can coexist but not easily
  • You need to become an expert at time management
  • Take time for your partner and family
  • Plan carefully as you schedule work and classes

Relationships with your parents:

  • They will change
  • Communicate with your parents, but make your own decisions
  • Be aware of their concerns
  • Remember, parents generally mean well
  • If needed, seek help from your campus’s counseling center or from a chaplain

\

Homesickness

  • Shift in environment and daily pattern
  • Varying speeds of adjustment

Tips for transitions:

  • Don’t let go of home all at once
  • Reach out slowly
  • Keep in mind that you are not the only new person at college.

\

Personal Relationships

Roommates:

  • Must be able to live together comfortably
  • Friends don’t always make the best roommates
  • Establish rights and responsibilities in writing
  • Talk out problems promptly and directly
  • Talk to the residence hall adviser if problems persist
  • If things do not improve, insist on a change

Romantic relationships/marriage:

  • Studies show the younger you are when you marry, the lower your odds of enjoying a successful marriage
  • It’s important not to marry before both you and your partner are certain of who you are and what you want

\

Breaking Up

  • End romantic relationships cleanly and calmly
  • Explain your feelings, and talk them out
  • Take the high road
  • Let some time pass
  • Be open to emotional support
  • Visit your counselor or chaplain if necessary

\

Relationship No-Nos

  • Avoid involvement with someone who is in a “power relationship” with you
  • Creates opportunities for abuses of power and/or sexual harassment
  • It’s harder to heal from a breakup with a coworker

\

Protecting Yourself and Others against Sexual Assault and Violence

  • Most survivors are women, although everyone is at risk
  • The attacker is often someone the survivor knows
  • Many assaults go unreported
  • Assaults are linked to alcohol use
  • Campus Save Act and Clery Act of 1990
  • Sexual assault causes traumatic effects

\

Protecting Yourself and Others against Sexual Assault and Violence

Steps to help a person who has experienced a sexual assault:

  • Remain empathetic and nonjudgmental
  • Keep information private; ensure the survivor’s confidentiality
  • Listen
  • Talk with the survivor about how to proceed; discuss options
  • Seek out advice from a professional
  • Stay in touch; follow up to see if the survivor is getting help

\

Communicating in a Digital Age

  • Match the seriousness of your message to your communication medium
  • Online isn’t always more efficient
  • Presume that your posts are public
  • Remember that your posts are permanent
  • Create drafts
  • Protect yourself and your online identity

\