According to Tinto the first stage of becoming a full fledge college student is seperation, seperating yourself from your daily life, going outside the norm. I experianced seperation the first night after moving to WVU. My family drove me to West Virginia, helped me unpack and set up my dorm. As they left I hugged each one of them with a big smile on my face. It wasn't until they left later that night it hit me, I was alone. Sure I had roomates. but I didn't know them too well yet, it was scary and uncomfortable. I was afraid of not meeting anyone. Fortunately, that first night of college a bunch of girls and I went out to soroity roe, I had the time of my life and I was certin I'd call these girls sisters some day. But when i got home that night no one was there to let me in when i forgot my keys. No one was there to make me breakfast in the morning. I again felt scared and alone.
After the first weekend my home-sickness went away. I made new friends and we were constantly doing something after class. This is called the trasition stage. Everything about school here was different than at home. I walked to class from my front door, there was all kinds of delicious fast food restaurantes at my disposure, my few best friends turned into a whole floor of friends and I wasn't just going out on the weekends. Everything was new and different, but I loved it. Back home I went to school and work during the week, always waiting for friday to come. In WVU every night had a theme, something was always going on and my classes ended early enough I could do all my work afterwords cause I wasn't working. After the first week my new life had already felt like my normal life, I was getting use to everything making it my new daily routine.
Finally, Tinto says incorporation is the last stage to becoming a college student. I never quite experianced that stage, due to family problems I had to come home and help my family. WVU was an amazing experiance as short as it was I can't wait to go back after community college. In some ways I feel like I am a full fledge college student cause I got the university/living on campus experiance there and I am still doing all my school work here, but I have lots more to experiance in the near future.
www.wvu.com
This is the link to WVU where I could go to access my MiX account which is like blackboard.
