My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student

As the father of three children ages 15, 19, and 23, I read books I hope will give me better ideas about how to be an effective parent. On this basis I would strongly recommend MY FRESHMAN YEAR to other parents for its perspective on college life. It would be good if my children would also read this book, but, as the book points out, they have their own priorities.The book's methodology does raise ethical issues. Is it ethical for a Professor of Anthropology to live in a dorm, take classes for the purpose of writing a book, and not tell students she is a member of the University facility? (She would tell other students who asked directly, but few did.) As a minister, I sat for six years on an Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviewing experiments on human subjects. The gold standard is to get "Informed Consent" before research is conducted. However, sometimes it is impossible to conduct the research and get Informed Consent beforehand. Perhaps passing out Informed Consent forms in a dorm or a classroom on the first day of school would have so inhibited the students that valuable insights into their culture would have been lost.On the other hand, the Northern Arizona University IRB should have at least required Informed Consent AFTER the research was finished. I would have required Cathy Small to keep a record of the students, staff, and faculty who played key roles in her research. I would require her to send each of these key people an Informed Consent form after her study was over. "INFORMED" should include the fact that she is a professor at NAU. (A test of what should be on a consent form is "If I were the subject of the research, would I want to know that the researcher is a professor at the university I attend as a student?" My answer would be yes.) I would require Small not to include any information obtained from persons who refused to sign the consent. I would require her to destroy any information obtained from persons who refused to sign the consent. That this was not required is the fault of the members of Northern Arizona University IRB.Finally, there are obvious conflict of interest issues here, because the professor has power over the students when it comes to grades and references. (Small describes how she wrote a reference for one student whom she befriended.) I wonder why the IRB did not require Small to conduct her research at another university where the conflict of interest issues would have been less.In spite of these ethical issues with the research, I strongly recommend the book to parents like myself who love our children and are spending thousands of dollars to send them to college.

Faculty at my campus are reading this for a monthly discussion group. It is very enlightening and helps us understand our current college students. School is soooo much different now! If you want to engage students more, read the book. Good info for those working on campuses with lots of international students.

I thought the topic of the book was great and that's what pulled me in and persuaded me to buy this book. I wish I would have read over more of the 1,2 and 3 star reviews before purchasing it, however. Instead it should have been a library check-out. I dislike starting a book and never finishing it, but this book was pretty boring in some spots and I almost gave up on it- but had to justify buying it somehow... so I read on until it was finished.The reason I'm giving it 3 stars is because the writing was fantastic. I think the author is a good writer who had a great idea, but it didn't get 5 stars because......Going to College undercover and gaining a renewed perspective is a pretty cool idea. Especially for a professor to gain that unique knowledge. I dislike bringing the author's age into it, but I don't see how in the World she felt she could gather insightful, and interesting experience/data being as old as some of the kids' Mothers. The kids could see right through this, and no 18 year old is going to want to "kick it" with a 50 year old woman in the dorm. Personally, I'd be skeptical of her and if anything, avoid her at all costs. How could people not think she was undercover? The age thing blew it for me. I was expecting so much more from her experience, but there wasn't anything truly insightful for me here.Now, if she'd been a 21-22 year old going undercover (an appropriate age where she could drink 40's and smoke blunts without people thinking it strange), then shit would have been interesting and this would have been a fascinating read! I don't say that to be disrespectful, I say that because those are some of the MOST important things- besides sex, to college kids these days. She even claims that in the book, based on observation. But it would have been more legit if she would have engaged in some of those activities to truly experience the life, get closer to students and *really* piss everyone off, afterward.I've read some of the reviews where people claim that she was "deceitful" and some people felt violated that she would "hide" amongst them and keep track of their lives. Really? You had NO idea that a 50 year old woman WASN'T really a college student? Wow. Stay in school kids.To be fair, those who like to crunch numbers and read about dry (albeit important) data will love this book. It had so much more potential for buck wild experiences though! I'm not sure why the location of the school was kept a secret, but all of the mystery about it was annoying too. Giving us racial and gender data would have been much more interesting and useful if we'd known whether the college was in Alabama or Los Angeles. What she offered in terms of that information was a dead end.My advice? Check this out at the library before buying.

Had to read this for a class. It was alright. Pretty boring narrative and didn't read evenly. Would not recommend for pleasure reading.

Good