July
27, 2006
[Each letter is personalized
to the individual student]
Dear
“New Student”,
I
am so glad that you will be attending Cal Poly and look forward to meeting you
this fall. You can be very
proud! You are entering one of the
nation’s most selective public universities, one that has been recognized
as the best, largely undergraduate, public institution in the west by US News and World Report for 13
consecutive years. We at Cal Poly
deeply care about your growth and success, both personal and intellectual. We want you to be a Cal Poly graduate.
There are two important
issues I would like to discuss with you in this letter.
First, I hope you will challenge yourself to obtain your Cal Poly degree in
four years. Our degrees in the
Second, I want to share some
thoughts on studying and learning. Your success depends on your immediate
academic adjustment to college.
College is very different from high school. In high school, most of your time was
spent in class with not so much required for study outside of class. Just the opposite is the case in
college. Class time is minimized;
the majority of your time will be spent studying and learning outside of
class. If you are a community
college transfer, things are also quite different. Remember, you will be in a
much more competitive environment and taking largely upper division courses.
Nationally,
college students are advised to study at least two hours per week per unit of
coursework. I know this may seem
like a lot to you, but think about it in this way. You will be in class 15-20 hours a week
and we recommend that you study 25-35 hours a week; the total of class time and
outside study is equivalent to a full time job with a 40-50 hour workweek. If you manage your time well, including
weekends, there is plenty of time for other activities. There is nothing more important
that I can tell you than to study 25-35 hours per week and that you study to
truly learn and understand.
I
emphasize the time you should devote to studying because in college it is
tremendously different from what most high school students commit. Just as important, you also need to
monitor your learning. When you
study, check to see if you understand.
If you can talk about something, explain it to someone else, work
problems with confidence, you probably know the material. If you can’t, you
don’t. It is important that
you keep up and learn continuously because cramming the night before an exam
does not work. Let me give you some
of examples of actual courses that many of you will take during your first year
and how you might estimate and use your study time.
ENGL
134: This four-unit writing course meets four
hours a week; we recommend that you devote approximately eight hours outside of
class. Let’s imagine that you
have a composition to write at least every other week. By the time you have chosen a topic,
developed and clustered ideas into an outline, written the first draft of the
paper, and gone through several revisions over several days, quite a few hours
will have been consumed. Whether
the hours are 5, 8, or 10 per week isn’t as important as it is that you have
dedicated the time needed to truly develop and express your ideas and grow
intellectually. Your writing skills
are critical to your future.
CHEM
127: This is a four-unit beginning chemistry
course with three hours per week of lecture and one three-hour laboratory
session. Generally, we recommend
more than 2hrs/unit/week of study for most science and mathematics courses, in
this case at least 10. You will
need to read the textbook one paragraph at a time and ask questions of yourself
as you read. You should integrate
your lecture notes with the text.
There are textbook problems in the interior and at the close of each
chapter for you to work.
Don’t work problems just to get the answer; you have to truly
understand. By the time you do all
of this, complete homework assignments and lab reports, and study for exams,
you could easily average ten hours per week.
MATH 141: This is a
four-unit course that initiates the calculus series. Generally class meets four times a
week. After each class period you
should make sure you understand the proofs and sample problems presented by
your instructor and review the same material in your textbook. Homework will be assigned and whether it
is required to be turned in or not, you should do it. Often textbooks will have alternating
problems with answers. It is
advisable to work the problems with answers first to check your understanding
and then the assigned problems. If
you do all of this – reviewing the lecture and textbook and doing problems
(both assigned and others that are related) – you could easily consume a
couple of hours per class period.
Weekly quizzes and hour exams require additional preparation. You should allocate 8-12 hours per week,
at least.
You
will notice that not everyone will commit to quality studying. Don’t be distracted by those who
don’t. They are not a large
group even though sometimes, because of the visibility of their lifestyles,
they may seem to be. Making a
commitment now will ensure your graduation and provide you choices in the
future, choices that you may not even be able to imagine now. Again, there is nothing more important that
I can tell you than to study 25-35 hours per week and that you study to truly
learn and understand.
Enclosed
is a short booklet concerning academic success. It shouldn’t take longer than
about 10 minutes to read. I hope
you will take the time to look at the booklet and the other materials provided
and share them with someone close to you so he or she can understand and
support you in your pursuit of a college degree.
Cal Poly is a special
university with an excellent reputation, a tradition of academic excellence,
and an impressive record of student success. You are now a part of the Cal Poly
community and have a responsibility to yourself and the University to
contribute to and enhance this tradition.
We want you to be successful and will support you in any way we
can. We want you to be a proud
graduate of Cal Poly in just a few short years from now.
Sincerely,
Philip
S. Bailey, Dean
Enclosures