College life can bring on many challenges and unexpected problems for students who have recently graduated from high school. A recent Harvard study states that the U.S. has the highest dropout rate in the industrialized world because many students are unprepared for the course load college has to offer.

Reasons for a poor start to the college experience often vary, but much of it may lean toward the differing academic expectations between high school and college, as less may be expected of high school students to the point where they do not meet the higher standards to go to college, according to the study.

“So then you have students who come and have taken a course of study that has prepared them well to graduate, but does not meet the minimum standards that would be expected when a student comes here,” said Dr. Thomas Calhoun, associate vice president of academic support. “There are many states in which the minimum standard for a high school diploma would not prepare that student for eligibility to even apply to the state’s universities.

Other opinions state that the school system has undergone little change to meet the new economical and technological needs of today.

“There’s virtually no computer science that is being taught in high school,” Calhoun said. “If I’m a principle and I’m being evaluated on core academic subjects, the core academic subjects don’t include some of the newer science such as computer science.”

However, not all students have had too difficult of an experience and have actually enjoyed their first year of college.

“Surprisingly it was more like high school, but a few differences here and there to give me a transition to college life,” said sophomore Malcolm Rice. “It wasn’t too bad once I got in the rhythm of things.”

In spite of the difficulty that some students find when entering college, faculty from high school and college find strategic methods to better prepare students for a better first-year experience.

“Many universities have a number of programs to assist students with the gen-ed courses,” said Calhoun. “Usually this is something that focuses on entering students early in their college time, where there will be a number of offices or academic support centers that offer things such as additional instruction or tutorials or additional advising or that kind of academic support.”