A College Primer: An Introduction to Academic Life for the Entering College Student - Softcover

Kirkpatrick's volume helps new students, parents, and others to understand the fundamental issues of collegiate life, from admission through commencement. The book provides a useful glimpse of the faculty, the meaning of the degree, the complexity of the organization and perhaps most usefully, those strange folkways that characterize institutions of higher learning. For the ambitious and talented who join colleges and universities each year, this small volume is an excellent way to start the journey of a lifetime. -- Gordon Haaland, president, Gettysburg College ...offers a point of view and information not often found in first-year college student books. This book would also be a useful tool for teachers, guidance counselors, college advisors, and parents of new college students. * Journal Of College Student Development * A College Primer is a different kind of college guidebook. This collection of essays will help students begin to understand the learning communities they intend to enter: their history, the values of the faculty, and the academic expectations that await them. Dr. Kirkpatrick has shared this knowledge with his own students for many years. Now his counsel is available to all prospective college students. In this small book, he reveals the mysteries of academic life and provides students with the keys they will need to unlock them. -- Dr. Joan Leitzel, president emerita of the University of New Hampshire

Here is a helpful resource for high school students who want to learn more about the real reason they will attend college: to gain an education. Going beyond the available college books that describe dorm life and fraternities, author John Kirkpatrick introduces students to the rich textures of the academic world at today's colleges and universities. He unravels the mysteries of professors, academic culture, degree programs, who's who on campus, and expectations in the college classroom. Kirkpatrick tells his tale as a seasoned voyager in the modern academy, who is passionate about the magic that happens inside the college gates. Students, parents, guidance counselors, and academic advisors will find the book useful in focusing entering student attention on the academic demands that await them. Finally, this is a book that talks seriously with students, not at them, about the remarkable trek through the academic world.