College: For You? Or Your Parents?

Xavier Baisden
Throughout our youth, many students have been pushed by their parents to get good grades. Sometimes parents would introduce a motivator, whether it was a reward or punishment, but in the end, the focus would be on the student succeeding with their education. However, college is one of the first times that students are autonomous and have full control over themselves and their grades. At this point, the motivation is placed solely on the student and their desire to succeed in their education, not on their parents motivation for their child to succeed. This lack of an external motivator causes many students to relax and not work as rigorously, or take the attitude of a quote from Ben Franklin, "I am lord of myself, accountable to none." This attitude can be quite detrimental to a student's college grades.
Rather than having the student have heaps of freedom along with the pressure given to them all at once upon arrival at college, both the student and the parent should work together to make sure that the student will use their time wisely. This will allow for a much easier and much more successful transition to college. A student's first semester in college is their most important as it is during this time that they develop most of the habits they will carry with them for the rest of their college career. If the student can develop responsible time management skills early, the stress that they experience will be much easier to handle than it would've been, resulting in a much more positive college experience for them and their parents. (Except at Georgia Tech, where students will always be stressed out and happiness is unknown.)