Experts say age alone can't explain why 'U' students live differently

Weekend, Etc. Editor

In purely mathematical terms, slightly more than 1,000 days (at the most) separate how long a University first-year student and a senior have been alive. Yet one does not have to strain one's eyes too hard to see that there's a mountain of difference between the two.

Besides living in different campus venues, taking different classes and, at least in theory, standing in different credit-determined students sections of Michigan Stadium on football Saturdays every fall, experts agree that there are concrete psychological differences between students in their first year of college and those students nearly finished with school.

MARGARET MYERS/Daily Some students study a lot, some devote more time to their social life, but everyone is able to find a little time to enjoy their college experience.

Psychology Prof. Robert Pachella said the unique characteristics we observe between first-year students and seniors are not related to the differences in age. Rather, the differences are due to how students have progressed emotionally since leaving the direct environment of their family's influence.

Pachella said that for almost everyone who starts college, turning 18 is one of life's most important age milestones. It is an important time, not because after 18 years the body goes through some magical change - but because it marks the beginning of college, life away from home and one of the most important transitional periods we will ever face.

"For (students), going to college is a very significant transition," says Pachella. "You arrive here having always lived under mommy and daddy's roof, thinking what mommy and daddy think."

Then, over the next few years, that thinking changes, he said.

And, as individuals change, they reach ages which society has branded important for one reason or another. Reaching 21 years of age or being "over 18" are two examples. Socially speaking the difference between being 18- and being 21-years old are great. But in terms of physical or psychological maturity the difference is minuscule, Pachella said.

And though the age difference is unimportant in the long run, turning 21 is still a very big deal to most of us on campus.

"I think that society attaches a very large stigma to being 21," said Nora Coleman, an LSA sophomore. "When someone turns 21, they might feel that they have more freedom and responsibility."

DANA LINNANE/Daily Two students prove once again that video games never care whether you are 21-years-old or not.

But if are all pretty similar physically and even physiologically, why do we all seem so different? The reason is not just that some students can go to the bar and some can't, experts say.

One reason is that until first-year student find their niche, they tend to look a bit out of place, Pachella said.

First-year-students tend to start the school year roaming the streets in droves in search of parties on the weekends and are fond of flocking to many of the University's scheduled and planned events during the week - behavior that is reminiscent of high school.

Part of that high school reminiscent mentality involves the idea of fitting in. The entering class tends to want to be like the rest of the group more than older students do, explains Deb Kraus, a psychologist at the University's Counseling and Psychological Services. That's why many people think they can identify first-year students by the way they look.

"There's a pressure to belong and fit in, to not stand out too weirdly," Kraus says. "Everybody's trying to find a niche. In a campus this large, you don't want to feel like a complete free agent."

Pachella also said the need to be part of a larger group draws many first-year students to fraternities and sororities.

"The Greek system is a continuation of a group mentality, where you are joined with others not because of shared values or interests but because of an arranged situation," Pachella says.

Psychology Prof. Chris Peterson says students can be divided into three classes, depending on their progress in the adjustment process: the entering class,

which has just left home, the continuing class, which has established itself at the University, and the departing class, which is preparing for the fully adult world of work and relationships.

"First-year students are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed," Peterson said. "By the time they get older, they get more jaded. When they become seniors, they get more serious, as they look for jobs."

Of course not all of the University's upperclassmen are well adjusted. And not all of Ann Arbor's first-year-students think alike. But the transition most of us experience during our first year on campus helps to shed light on why we all seem so different.

09-17-98