My Freshman Year Book Review

In “My Freshman Year” the author, Rebekah Nathan, goes back to college as a freshman to conduct research on how college life has changed since she was a student in college. Nathan is a professor at a university where she teaches anthropology. She moved in as a student to live on campus, went to Welcome Week, attended classes regularly, and also participated in campus activities. In her book she wrote about all of the challenges she encountered and the struggles she was faced with. She learned that even though colleges claim they are a community, they are the opposite in reality. For example, people tended to sit in their rooms and watch television with a select group of friends rather than go to the community lodging area to watch the same television show with other people. Nathan was also fascinated with the amount …show more content…
In “My Freshman Year” Nathan went back to college as a “freshman” in 2002 to experience what college was like in that generation. In the first chapter of her book she explained, “I wanted to see what college life was like as a student, albeit a “returning” student, and to relate to other students and to faculty members as a student rather than as a professor and researcher” (Nathan, pg. 6). Her research started In June 2002 when she attended summer previews. Freshman previews were required for all upcoming freshman; it was a two day event where students stayed overnight in a dorm (Nathan, pg. 7). Nathan stated how overwhelming the whole experience was even before she moved in. There were so many clubs, organizations, and sororities to enroll into. During those two days she attended information sessions and learned how to register for classes, meal plan options, how to obtain tutoring, and tuition payment methods (Nathan, pg. 8). One of her largest struggles was the fact that she viewed all of these new experiences as a freshman student from a professor’s point of view. She