At the Counseling Center, we are aware of the important and foundational roles parents play in the lives of their daughters. Below you will find information about the resources available to you and your daughter, and the ways in which you can assist her in getting the most out of her college experience.
Personal Counseling Services
Learn about the different types of personal counseling services available to students. STUDENTS ARE PROVIDED UP TO 12 COUNSELING SESSIONS PER SCHOOL YEAR. If more intensive long-term counseling is required please contact your health insurance for providers in the South Bend area. Due to the high demand for counseling services, students who no-show 3 times will be asked to seek services off-campus.
Academic Success
Find a listing of academic success resources available to students. Explore links to improve study habits, understanding learning styles, and managing time/stress.
Specific questions about class schedules, degree requirements and other academic matters may be addressed through the Office of Academic Affairs and First Year Studies (574-284-4594).
What can my daughter do with her major?
This information helps students explore career opportunities associated with different majors. They choose from a list of common majors to find out common career areas, typical employers, and strategies designed to maximize career opportunities for each major.
The major task for young adults is leaving childhood behind and forming a new life-structure for adulthood. During each of the four years of College, certain issues become important on this process of adult formation.
For first year students, the major transition is from home and family living into an independent adult life in the college community. Transition often involves a certain sadness felt with the absence of familiar persons and support; home sickness is common. For some, this happens early; for others an extended visit home points out the changes in relationships and the loss of the past. For the family, the ultimate task in the care of adult children means letting go: providing support without taking control.
In daily college life students face a new set of expectations:
a higher level of academic responsibilities, vastly decreased supervision, care for one's personal physical needs and independent decision-making. To succeed, a student must create new attachments in the college community, reaching out to form new relationships and making wise choices regarding work and how time is spent. The family task is to encourage and support while leaving decisions to the student.
The process of sampling academic interests and trying out one's talents that seems endless freshman year is replaced by the college requirement to choose a major. This process requires serious thinking about the future and choosing an attainable and appropriate educational goal. Many students go through a time which is characterized by unexplainable feelings of apathy, alienation and sadness, a syndrome popularly known as "sophomore slump." Some of this is normal when students return to college without all the excitement and novelty of the first year and face the realistic pressure of a significant decision about the future.
On the social scene, friendships established based on proximity change. Students living now in different residence halls on campus often don't maintain previous relationships. This is also the year when the high school peer group often grows apart; relationships with "hometown honey's" often get re-evaluated the summer following freshman year. Family relationships are apt to have shifted to accommodate the student's physical absence from home and family life.
During the junior year, students are expected to have acquired the background and study skills necessary to perform at their maximum ability especially within their major. An increased seriousness toward studies is generally expected both from those who teach and from the students themselves. Students are confronted more directly with taking a realistic assessment of their own abilities and talents as they look ahead to their place in the adult world.
Personal relationships also take on an increased seriousness and selectiveness. Because of increased academic demands and co-curricular commitments, social time is more precious. During this year the search for more permanent friendships and more serious dating relationships often becomes an issue. By the end of the year, many students seek a summer job or volunteer work in some area of occupational interest to test further their talents and ability to function by adult standards in the world of work.
The angle of vision changes this year from the endless present to a future in which students envision looking back on college years with nostalgia. Realistic planning is a primary task. Even in the most well-functioning student, occasional periods of malaise, sadness and/or acute anxiety occur and must be tolerated with the acknowledgment that the distress is caused by the anticipated transition. However unfamiliar the student may have been with college upon entry, it is vastly more predictable than the world of work beyond the confines of the undergraduate college. Seniors are sometimes bent upon seeking pleasure with their friends more urgently than ever before in their college career; this "senioritis" can be an important part of ensuring a happy transition. Students can be helped to discover that life beyond graduation holds delightful opportunities and possibilities. A richer relationship with parents as adult to adult is also part of the post graduation transition.
Adapted with permission of the author from the "College Years as a Mini Life Cycle: Developmental Tasks and Adaptive Options" by Dr. Joanne Medalie, Columbia University.
