Final Project Idea: The Transition

Every year thousands of students embark on the next chapter of their life by attending college.  For many years institution across the nation (probably the world) always want to know how can they retain as many students as possible to help the reach their goal of graduation.  For my final project, I want to investigate what how students (freshmen and transfer) view college.  I want to know from a regional/state view if there are differences in what students believe college will be like.  I also want to see if there is a trend that goes thru the years about how students perceive college and how prepared the student may be.

I would use the data from the Beginning College Survey of College Students.  There are over 1400 institutions across the UnitedStates and Canada that participate in the survey and it “collects data about entering college students’ high school academic and co-curricular experiences, as well as their expectations for participating in educationally purposeful activities during the first college year.”