John Bader - Deans List: Eleven Habits of Highly Successful College Students

DEANS LIST

Eleven Habits of Highly Successful College Students

JOHN B. BADER

2011 John B. Bader
All rights reserved. Published 2011
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bader, John B.
Deans list : eleven habits of highly successful college students / John B. Bader.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-0080-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-0081-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-0080-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4214-0081-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Study skills. 2. College student orientation. I. Title.
LB2395.B28 2011
378.198dc22 2010046743

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

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To Calvin and Eli

Featuring Guest Essays by...
ARIEL PHILLIPS, Ed.D., Counselor, and ABIGAIL LIPSON, Ph.D., Director, Bureau of Study Counsel, Harvard University

Featuring Guest Essays by...
KATHRYN STUART, D.M.A., Dean of Studies and Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, Oberlin College

Featuring Guest Essays by...
MICHELE RASMUSSEN, Ph.D., Associate Dean and Director, Academic Advising Center, Duke University

Featuring Guest Essays by...
MARGARET BRUZELIUS, Ph.D., Dean of the Senior Class and Lecturer in Comparative Literature, Smith College

Featuring Guest Essays by...
GEORGE LEVESQUE, Ph.D., Assistant Dean for academic Affairs, Yale College, Yale University

Featuring Guest Essays by...
CARL P. THUM, Ph.D., Director, Academic Skills Center, Dartmouth College

Featuring Guest Essays by...
ANDREW N. SIMMONS, Ph.D., Director of the Career Development Center, Brown University

Featuring Guest Essays by...
RAIMA EVAN, Ph.D., Assistant Dean, Bryn Mawr College

Featuring Guest Essays by...
KAREN BLANK, Ed.D., Dean of Studies, Barnard College

Featuring Guest Essays by...
SUE BROWN, Ph.D., Resident Dean of Freshmen, Harvard College, Harvard University

Featuring Guest Essays by...
ANYA BERNSTEIN, Ph.D., Director of Undergraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer, Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, Harvard University

This book is a project many years in the making, only becoming reality with the help of many supporters. I am grateful for the encouragement, frank feedback, and support of Ashleigh McKown at the Johns Hopkins University Press. She saw real promise in the project, but that promise could not have been realized without her honesty. I also appreciate the exacting pen of copyeditor Carolyn Moser.

The project became a communal effort, an attempt at capturing collective wisdom, thanks to the advice and contributing essays of many colleagues at peer institutions. We started a yearly conference of these advising deans in 2007; and in 2008, many of them accepted my invitation to contribute to this book. I am most grateful to them all. Their names and biographies appear in the books list of contributors.

I want to thank my senior colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University: Paula Burger, Dan Weiss, Steven David, Adam Falk, Richard Sanders, Karen Desser, Kathie Sindt, Ruth Aranow, Adriene Breckenridge, Jim Fry, Michelle Rodriguez, Janet Weise, Andrew Douglas, John Latting, Lori Citti, Ken Romaine, Steve Pomper, Jessica Madrigal, Liza Thompson, Bill Conley, Michael Mond, and Susan Boswell. Their wisdom, experiences, stories, and support run through every sentence I have written. I would have been helpless without my assistants at Hopkins, first Sydney Green and then Vicki Fitzgerald, who have proven that no man can succeed without strong women.

My family has always supported this project. I am grateful, as always, to my wife, Amy. And I happily dedicate this book to our sons, Calvin and Eli, with the hope that they will lead lives of adventure and exploration.

Finally, I am deeply grateful to the hundreds of students at UCLA and especially at Johns Hopkins who have been a joyous source of inspiration, wisdom, and hope for our future.

DEANS LIST

Congratulations! You did it. You got into college! Maybe youre going to Princeton, Michigan, Duke, Berkeley, Stanford, or another of the best research universities in the world. Or perhaps youre bound for a great liberal arts college like Swarthmore, Davidson, Pomona, or Kenyon. Maybe its a private college in New England or the flagship campus of your state university system. That is wonderful and, Im sure, well deserved.

Youve worked hard the past few years, building an amazing record of academic achievements, community service, and activities that have kept you busy and challenged. You sweated through exams like the SAT, filled out countless applications and forms, and waited in agony to get word from your dream schools. And now youre in.

Now what?

It sounds strange, but a lot of incoming freshmen have no good answer to that question. They might have a plan for a major or even a career, but if pressed, theyll confess that theyre not sure what that means. They have worked incredibly hard, to the point of exhaustion, to start an experience that they dont really understand. They know college is important. (Why go to all that trouble and expense if it werent?) But its not quite clear what college will be like or how to succeed, especially if they are the first in their family to go to college.

This book will answer your questions, helping you to find real and lasting success in college. I have gathered the wisdom of dozens of deans from the best colleges in America, including the entire Ivy League, to combine with my observations so that you can enjoy the success you want and deserve. Together, we offer a list of 11 habits of highly successfully college students, 11 strategic choices to help you navigate the next four years.

Well do this in a way thats a bit unconventional, because youre too smart and savvy to be offered a laundry list of tips.

If youre reading this in April of your senior year, you may be considering several acceptance offers. Maybe its June, and youre celebrating high school graduation with just a hint of wistfulness. By July, youve made a decision and are looking at lots of documents from your college, filling out endless forms online. In August, the uncertainties and anxieties of moving away from home and onto a strange campus are upon you. Or maybe its September, the academic year has started, and youre working to find your legs as a college freshman.

Whatever the moment in time, you need to think about the differences between your life in high school and the one you are starting in college, particularly the academic differences. Of course, if you dont, youll probably be just fine. Most freshmen are. But you may miss the chance to take the campus at a faster speed, to jump onto the fast-moving train that is college life without stumbling. You want to do much better than fine. So lets look at some of the key differences you will find, some of which well examine at length in the chapters that follow, and what they mean to your success.