Shaping Your College Environment- Part 1: Choosing the College

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Shaping Your College Environment- Part 1: Choosing the College

Kimball Bullington, Ph.D.

Okay, so you buy some exotic fish from the pet store and bring them home. What do you do next? Fill the tank straight from the tap and dump in the fish? That does not result in healthy fish. You will want to learn the best environment for your fish and try to create that environment.
Fortunately, children are usually more tolerant to changes in their environment than aquarium fish are, but the change from a home environment to a college environment can be damaging to a student’s spiritual, physical, emotional, financial, and even academic health. What can be done to help your student thrive?
Consider three options to shape your student’s college environment: minimize the change, control the macro environment, and control the micro environment. Let’s consider each option in detail.
Choosing a local university or community college while living at home is a good way to minimize the change in environment. There is no need to change church families and your student can still maintain a number of friendships formed during high school. The food doesn’t change substantially – your child may only eat a single meal each day away from home. If she becomes ill, she has you to care for her and access to the physician who knows her. From an academic perspective, community colleges hire teachers to teach, not to do research. These instructors may be superior teachers to what you will find at a well-known and respected university.
There are several disadvantages to staying at home for college. You don’t get the complete “university experience” and some aspects of that experience are good. Stay at home students don’t get as involved in the social activities and may not be as influential on other students. For those who are home educating, think “What about socialization?” However, the difference here is that students are older and may be ready for the increased independence. There are academic opportunities that may be more available to students who live on campus, such as evening lectures. The level of talent brought into a university to lecture is amazing and often exceeds the educational value of the classroom.
If you do not have the opportunity to continue your child’s education while remaining at home or choose not to do so, the next level of environmental control is to control the macro environment. This might take the form of selecting a small, private school such as a church related university. You may take into consideration the city, the reputation the school has as a party school, whether or not it is urban or small town, the level of academic competition / pressure, etc. You may choose an undergraduate degree granting school rather than a university. This can be a good choice as long as you match up your child’s major with the majors that the school specializes in.
Controlling the macro environment by limiting the type of college seems like an obvious choice for many parents and, in fact, the only choice for many parents. When I graduated from high school my parents gave me the choice between stay at home and go to a local school or go away to a Christian school. However, private schools are usually expensive. They are filled with fallen people as well and so parents should not have the expectation that their children can follow the crowd because the crowd is going the right direction. Crowds rarely do. Some of these schools are limited academically. Beware also of what courses will transfer into your program at your final target school if you plan to finish your degree at another school or go to graduate school.
The final option can be applied to any type of college or university – control the micro environment. When my daughter was choosing a school, her chosen major, cello performance, changed her selection criteria. She needed to find the right instructor, not just the right program. The instructor she chose was not only the best musician of any she auditioned for, but also he asked to pray with her before he gave her a lesson. This is not typical. Because of the close relationship of student and teacher in music (the same would be true of coaches in sport) the micro environment may be more important than the macro environment.
The downside of basing a choice on a teacher or a program is that they may change. Teachers and coaches leave. Consider asking the teacher if they plan to stay for four more years.
Whether you decide to minimize the change in environment or control the macro environment, controlling the micro environment is still important. For this reason, we will deal with the micro environment in more detail in a future article. Environments are difficult to manage, but not at all impossible. Prayerfully consider putting your child into the environment that will help him use his gifts to the fullest while protecting him from unnecessary exposure to harm.