Day 1 is Hard: Reflections on Being a First-Year Student (Again) – Faculty Focus
It is that time of year again. I am staring longingly out the window while I sit indoors, on my computer, tweaking syllabi in anticipation of teaching again in the coming semester. This ritual feels different this year because I am coming back from a sabbatical, part of which I spent as a student (again). At this time last year, I was preparing to learn basic statistics for my research as a student, because my chemistry undergraduate degree was curiously bereft of training in statistics. So, I (again) registered for a first-year class as a student. My Day 1 experience as a student (again) was enlightening. My brief foray into the freshman experience, while not quite a full experience including living in a dorm room and eating in the cafeteria (Nathan 2006), gave me a chance to critically reflect on what students experience in my own classes. I would like to share a few of my experiences, what I learned from them, and what I aim to change in my own Day 1 routine in the coming year, with the hope that it helps some of you too.
Facing Day 1 Anxiety
One of the most profound shocks of being a student (again) on Day 1 was the sense of anxiety I experienced before the class started. I knew I was very rusty on the prerequisite material; it has been almost 25 years since I took high school math! I was not feeling at all confident that I still “had it” in terms of my ability to succeed as a student. Looking back now, I realized that my own students must also feel the same way. How many of them have not retained all the prerequisite knowledge they learned a while ago? While probably not a quarter of a century ago, I am certain they do feel like their high school education was a long time ago by the time they are in my class. Similarly, how many of them were always near the top of their classes, and now suddenly realize that might no longer be true?
My Takeaway: Give Students Early Support and Reassurance
My experience reminded me that there is no such thing as too much review of prerequisite material, either in the first few classes at the start of my course or as informal reminders when I am introducing a brand-new concept. My students probably feel it has been a long time since they had to activate that prior knowledge that I am trying to build upon, and I guess some don’t feel anywhere near as confident in their ability to succeed as they did even a year ago. Little reminders and lots of reassurance will go a long way this coming fall when I am back in the class as an instructor.
The Novice Moment
But my anxiety did not only manifest before the class started. On my first day back as a student, I fully panicked when a ‘fellow student’ asked a question of our instructor (“Professor, is that variable nominal, or ordinal?”). I panicked because I realized I had absolutely no idea what the question even meant, and I realized how hard it was being a novice again (Mulnix 2023)! I also missed the answer to the question because I was so busy trying not to get visibly upset in the middle of a crowded lecture hall. I am not somebody prone to panic attacks or severe anxiety, but the sudden realization of how unmoored I felt taught me a valuable lesson.
My Takeaway: Build Student Confidence Day 1
This coming semester, I will be more attentive to how simple questions or off-the-cuff remarks could easily hit my students in unexpected ways. For students already feeling unprepared or uncertain in my class, innocent queries or comments might subtly reinforce underlying feelings that my class will be beyond their capabilities. Phrases such as “this should be easy” or “something you should all know already” shall be completely stricken from my vocabulary. Especially as we seek to educate a generation suffering from higher rates of diagnoses for anxiety and panic, I need to find ways to make sure my students remember that they probably know more than they think. Prerequisite classes, while perhaps feeling long past for them, have provided them with everything they need to succeed in my class. Part of my job is to encourage them to engage in the hard work and remind them that they do fit in my class. Whether this involves an easy content-related quiz on the first day of classes or some similar confidence-building exercise, I now realize how important confidence-building is for the first day of class.
Feeling Out of Place
The last key experience from Day 1 of my second time being a first-year student was linked to my discomfort when I entered the lecture hall. I suspect most of us still remember the shock of walking into our first big lecture hall and being stunned by the sheer size of the hall, and number of other bewildered students. But what I felt was discomfort disconnected from the size of the lecture hall. Rather, I walked into the lecture hall and instantly felt like I did not belong. The grey in my beard was a clear signal to other students that I was different, and they subtly found ways to avoid sitting near me or meeting my eye. I believe these behaviors were unconscious reactions on the part of others, but it felt very real. As a White male living in Western Canada, I have not often felt the sensation of walking into a room and realizing I don’t automatically fit in with other people.
My Takeaway: Ensure Every Student Feels Welcome and Included
I realized some of my students must also feel when they walk into my classroom and are visibly different from their peers or their instructor. That sense of alienation is subtle, but it is very real when you are the one who stands out. In my classes, I have always talked about, and tried to put into action, the message that everybody is welcome. But this semester, I will be trying much harder to convey that message, both implicitly and explicitly. My students who are part of traditionally underrepresented groups based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, age, or some other feature, they need to feel welcome in my class. My syllabus language will be tweaked to be more directly inclusive. My friendly greetings on Day 1 shall be clearly directed to all my students to avoid whatever unconscious biases I may harbor. I will endeavor to arrange the physical classroom to make it easier for everybody to sit next to somebody else, and I will make sure my first day of class icebreaker gives people a chance to talk to each other (Weimer 2017). Even if it is just to exchange pleasantries, getting my students talking to each other is the best thing I can do to help them realize they are all feeling similar anxieties, in addition to excitement at how that first class will go.
As the semester continued and I settled in to learn about things such as the differences between a z-test and a t-test, my experience on Day 1 of being a first-year student (the second time around) stood out as particularly important. What I experienced as a student in statistics gave me a great deal to think about how my students might be feeling when they enter my 1st-year general chemistry classroom this fall. So instead of staring out the window, I had best get back to preparing that course syllabus to incorporate all those non-statistics things I learned this past year.
Brian Rempel, PhD, joined the University of Alberta’s Augustana campus where he primarily teaches general and organic chemistry as an Associate Professor. Brian developed a love for teaching chemistry during his PhD work on enzymology at the University of British Columbia and brought that passion to his teaching-focused role at Augustana in 2009. Brian’s research studies the impact and student perceptions of unique means for evaluating student knowledge, with a particular focus on finding equitable ways of evaluating student knowledge to reduce student anxiety.
References
Mulnix, Amy B. 2023. “Being a Novice Again.” The Teaching Professor, February 27. https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/professional-growth/being-a-novice-again/
Nathan, Rebekah. 2006. My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student. Penguin Books.
Weimer, Maryellen. 2017. “First Day of Class Activities That Create a Climate for Learning.” The Teaching Professor, July 19. https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/for-those-who-teach/first-day-of-class-activities-that-create-a-climate-for-learning/
