Does college forum help students?

Oksana Pawlush
Staff Writer

College forum is course offered by Hudson Valley to help students adjust to college life, but is it helping or hindering the students who take it?

College forum is required for students during their first semester. It’s a course that’s meant help new students learn the buildings and services offered on campus, but is it necessary?

Advisors on campus say that college forum is a great way to smooth over the transition to college for high school students or people who don’t have any experience with college.

“It introduces students to the college, campus and services offered by the college,” said Mollie DeFont, an advising specialist.

“It gets the students ready to take college level coursework in combination with classes they are taking their first semester,” said DeFont.

Many students who have taken college forum didn’t see any benefits to the class. Garrett Cardinal, a liberal arts major, thinks that the class was in no way beneficial for him. “The class was more of a burden rather than helpful because it was time I could have spent studying or doing work for another class,” said Cardinal.

Cardinal reflected on some of the projects the students in the class had to complete, including a sort of “treasure hunt”, where students had to go to each building on campus, find the spot marked on their assignment and write about their experience and the building.

Students also said that the information that they were taught in the class was information that they learned either from their friends, advisors or from the internet. “You don’t really find any useful information that you could have learned yourself by going to college here,” said business major Justin Hunts. Hunts feels that is you have any questions or concerns about college, you should just directly approach your adviser.

“That’s what advisors are for, to advise,” he said.

Students that took college forum feel like it did teach them one or two useful tidbits of information, but it wasn’t worth the time or money needed to take the course. Students think that college forum should be a recommended course rather than a required course, as they already knew most of the information, or could have accessed it via the Internet or asking friends.