College Transition Initiative

Welcome to the blog of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding’s (CPYU) College Transition Initiative (CTI). This site contains commentary on transitional issues, exploring research, trends and college student culture. For more information visit: www.cpyu.org.

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Location: Elizabethtown, PA, United States

The transition from high school to college is a difficult one, and yet, it is a transition that is often overlooked. This site is to help college bound students, parents, and youth workers stay up to date on the latest research and trends in regards to college transition. Your comments are greatly appreciated. Join the conversation!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Need Help Finding a College?

CampusExlporer.com "is dedicated to helping students, parents and counselors find the information and support needed while researching and applying to post secondary schools. Choosing the right school is an important life decision and CampusExplorer.com is here to offer guidance throughout this decision making process by providing free, easy-to-use tools, expert advice and objective information. Consider us your personal college and career counselors available 24/7, to help match you with the right program at the right school, organize and track your applications and determine your ideal tuition options."

You can search for colleges by major, location and degree. It's easy and quite interesting. When you do get a list of schools based on your search, one of the first details to pop up is tuition. It was fun just to see how much schools cost! Well, "fun" might not be the right word!

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Affirming Doubt

For the Spring edition of CPYU's Engage, I wrote an article entitled "Affirming Doubt: Helping Students Ask and Answer Tough Questions." Drawing from my own experience of doubt during my time in Thailand shortly after the Tsunami, I explained that asking tough questions and being honest about our doubts about God and faith can be a needed, but painful aspect of discipleship.

I thought the article needed to be written because of students I have known over the years that have struggled with doubt. Many of the students were told that there was no room for doubt in the Christian faith. In the article I record "gripes" I often hear from students:

“In youth group, I wasn’t supposed to ask questions, but to have faith.”

“No one ever told me there were so many intellectual challenges to the Christian faith.”

“If I have doubts, I must not have faith, so I can do whatever I want.”

I then offer three responses for parents and youthworkers:

"Model a life of life-long learning."

"Create a safe space for students to ask questions and articulate their faith in their own words."

"Be patient with students who are wrestling with faith, affirm them in the struggle, but get them to see what good and honest doubting looks like."

You can read the entire article here.

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Yearnings of Young Collegians

In yesterday's Sunday News of the York Daily Record, my good friend, Byron Borger, wrote an insightful article on preparing students for college. He writes about the difficulties of the transition but also highlights "reports that indicate a cultural, intellectual and spiritual renaissance among college students." You can read the article here.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

New ABC TV Show About College: Nothing New

What a busy last few weeks. Three weeks ago, Heidi and I spent two wonderful days at Camp Cowen in West Virginia. I presented the college transition seminar to about 40 college bound campers. It was my second year in a row doing a presentation there and I hope this becomes an annual tradition (no pressure Camp Cowen!). It is a fun place with an energized staff. Thank you Tim and Crystal for your hospitality and great music (be sure to check out their new CD from their band Treehands).

After that we spent two weeks at the Ocean City Beach Project in Ocean City, New Jersey. I taught a course on worldview and the students were a blast. Once again, could this be an annual tradition, please?!

Finally, last night, ABC Family had the premiere episode of the new show Greek. Well, um, hmmm… not sure it will last very long. It seems to be written for a high school audience, but I’m not sure high schoolers could take it seriously. If nothing else, it does help us to better understand what our culture thinks college is all about. The show will probably serve to shape the imaginations of many incoming freshman. That’s sad.