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Focus Group Interviews.

All second semester, first-year students were invited to participate in a focus group interview via e-mail. In addition, fliers were posted and hand-distributed to make sure all first-year students were aware of the opportunity to participate. A total of 26 students participated in 5 focus group over a period of two weeks. No effort was made to ensure that students were demographically representative, although in the end the students who stepped forward were racially and ethnically diverse. Many fewer men than women chose to participate, however; just 4 of the 26 students were male. Also, although the researcher did not directly ask about paid work, none of the students mentioned currently working; presumably the volunteers were ones who could afford the time.

First-year student experience was in most cases 180 degrees from that of the transfer students interviewed last year. Transfer students described facing many bureaucratic obstacles during their transition to Hunter College, and even in the years that followed. Many, though not all, also faced persistent loneliness. These students, by definition the persisters, managed the situation by developing strategies for managing the bureaucracy and, in some cases, getting involved in an activity which provided them with an “anchor group.” Few students described facing a major academic adjustment, although those that did find difficulty making the academic transition suffered for it (and felt that there were few resources available to aid them or were unaware of those that were). In contrast, the first-year students mostly described ease in getting a started at the institution, and although the road wasn't perfectly smooth for all of them, only one described the kind of rocky early weeks described by most of the transfer students. Socially they found Hunter intimidating at first sight, but most very quickly made friends, normally through their blocks....