First Days of College

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A01=Steven L. VanderStaay
Author_Steven L. VanderStaay
Category=JNM
Category=VS
Category=YPWL4
College
college guidebook
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_self-help
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
freshman
habits
mindsets
parents
school safety
self-help
students
studying
time management
university

Product details

  • ISBN 9798216383062
  • Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
  • Publication Date: 17 Sep 2026
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Each year, two million high school graduates begin college. Yet only about half graduate in four years. Nearly 4 in 10 leave without a degree altogether.

It doesn't have to be this way.

What most distinguishes students who succeed from those who don't are habits, mindsets, and strategies that any student can learn. This book is your guide to putting them into practice—beginning with the first days of college.

This college-success guide:
- Focuses on the first days of college—a critical window when effective habits and mindsets form most readily.
- Anchors each chapter in a specific decision students must make.
- Teaches the strategies successful students actually use
- Tackles hard truths about student debt, dropout risks, and campus safety issues like alcohol-related accidents and sexual assault.
- Addresses the concerns of new students—making friends, managing money, study strategies, and whether college is "worth it."
- Provides a practical "Playbook" of activities to immediately apply each chapter's concepts.
- Connects academic effort to personal purpose—helping students root their work in their values, aspirations, and who and what they most care about.
- Combines research on learning with insights from those who work most closely with new students.

Steve VanderStaay is a teaching and learning specialist at Western Washington University. He served for 12 years as Western’s Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, a position which included responsibility for the university’s first-year retention and academic success initiatives. His awards include a Spencer/National Academy of Education post-doctoral research fellowship, an NSF grant for improving first-year student recruitment and success in Engineering programs, and a student nomination for Western’s distinguished teaching award. He is based in Bellingham, Washington.

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