For some students, an easy transition into college the first semester can be daunting. And to top it off, some face the reality after checking grades following their first semester only to discover a nightmare: getting placed on academic probation.

This is not an uncommon occurrence for first -year students. Many students will face academic probation following the completion of their first semester.

The reality

In fact, MSU associate provost for Undergraduate Education R. Sekhar Chivukula said depending on the semester, up to 10 percent of first year students will be put on academic probation.

“The historical average at Michigan State has been around close to 10 percent of freshmen entering students are on probation at the end of first semester, and that rate has dropped to 7 percent this last semester,” Chivukula said.

Even though numbers are lower this year, it is still quite common for freshmen to struggle during their first semesters at MSU.

It is even more likely for first-year international students to have a hard time in their first semesters at MSU.

The number of international students placed on academic probation is nearly double that of domestic students, Chivukula said.

“International students are about, overall, about twice that rate (of domestic students) almost 15 percent,” Chivukula said. “That rate has fluctuated, it has been as high as 20 (percent) in the past.”

Reasons to struggle

The transition into college as a freshman can be a difficult one, and is a major factor in why it is common for students to struggle early on in their college careers.

Erica Fiasky, who is the Advising Director for the North Neighborhood Engagement Center, said it is common for students to struggle in their transition because they are not aware of the expectations of a college environment.

“The students that we see typically it is a lot of the transition from high school to college, so not really understanding the expectations that come with a college classroom,” Fiasky said.

This was largely the case for media and information sophomore Blake, who asked The State News not include his last name for privacy reasons.

Blake faced a “busy” transition into life here in East Lansing, as he put it.

“It was busy, I don’t think it was difficult, I just had a lot going on,” he said.

What he had going on was trying to make sense of the transition from a community college to life at a large university such as MSU.

As a whole, Blake said there were multiple things that contributed to his struggles in school.

“I would say unmotivation, lack of motivation (caused poor performance),” Blake said. “I hadn’t chosen a major last semester and I was in a transitional period between Mount Pleasant and East Lansing, from a community college to a university.”

In order to avoid falling into a situation such as Blake’s, Fiasky suggested that students seek help from an adviser as soon as they feel there may be an issue for them academically.

Even with all of this in mind, Blake said he is not concerned about this current semester.

“I’m not nervous at all... I’m 100 percent sure I’ll be OK,” he said.

Blake said he thinks that since he is better prepared to succeed this semester that he will be just fine.

“I have appointments (with advisers), so I’m planning a lot more and I like my classes a lot better this semester,” Blake said.

Not just a new environment

However, for some students it’s about more than just the transition into the school or a radically different level of independence students see in high school.

For kinesiology freshman Pallavi Joshi, her first semester was very difficult for her because of medical issues that she faced. Right off the bat, she was very sick just prior to the start of classes.

“Right when I got to college, I had been in the hospital for about a month, so I was pretty sick,” she said. “Then I just got out like two days before the semester started. I was pretty much just unprepared to be there.”

Following this, she suffered an injury from being on the MSU rowing team that had her hospitalized once again. The combination of these two issues caused her to miss roughly two to three weeks out of the first month of classes.

Even once she was able to start focusing on classes, things didn’t get much better for Joshi. She was really struggling in one of her classes, which she decided to drop, leaving her with only nine credits.

While it might seem like it would be easier for her to go to her classes, Joshi said that she found it made it easy to neglect going to class.

“I just had so much time, I was only in class for nine hours a week and occasionally I just wouldn’t go,” Joshi said. “And being honest, I didn’t want to wake up for my 8 a.m. class even though it was across the street.”

In addition to the academic issues that she faced, personal problems also had an effect on Joshi’s performance in school.

“I was dealing with a lot of issues at home and stuff like that, so that contributed also for sure. I wasn’t able to really focus, even on the really small course load that I had, ” Joshi said.

That wasn’t the end of the issues that plagued Joshi’s first semester. Adding onto the academic and personal issues, Joshi found difficulty taking an interest in her major.

“Towards the end of the semester, I realized I didn’t really like my major at all,” Joshi said. “I was in Lyman-Briggs, which is completely science based and I realized that that’s really not my interest at all.”

Eventually she decided kinesiology was more of what she was interested in and switched to that major.

Discussing her being on academic probation was actually something new for Joshi as she hasn’t told very many people about her situation.

For many people, their first reaction would be to tell their family, in hopes of receiving support. However, that was not Joshi’s impulse. She in fact has not told her parents at all.

Joshi also hasn’t told her friends about her situation, she said.

“I didn’t tell anybody actually, I didn’t tell my friends, she said. “Pretty much nobody knows.”

Despite all of this, she believes that she will be able to recover and do well this coming semester. Joshi acknowledged the difficulty she might face, but believes she can succeed in spite of this.

“Right now, I’m still obviously dealing with a lot but I think that I will definitely be able to get back to where I’m supposed to be,” Joshi said.