Get Up! College

If the book, Chicken Soup for the College Soul, were likened to a meal appetizer, then Get Up! College would have to be described as “the main course.”

Hello. This is Dr. Christopher Miller. Welcome to Get Up! College – How to Successfully Navigate Your Freshman Year . . . and Beyond.

In my estimation, there will likely never be a shortage of books and campus guest speakers oozing with goose bump arousing stories, inspirational quotes and feel good chuckles to circulate the college market. After all, it’s natural for nerve-frazzled students (and their parents I might add!) to demand such comforting material, especially upon embarking on the college journey. Because let’s face it, who doesn’t like to feel good? And what reasonable person, upon encountering significant stress, wouldn’t seek comfort?

And while Get Up! College promises to provide a similar warm fuzzy experience, its ultimate objective is quite unique. In fact, the purpose of Get Up! College is to provide freshmen college students with the tools that research suggests will not only bring comfort, but will actually help more students succeed.

The truth of the matter is that many students desperately struggle to navigate a complex labyrinth of issues en route to successfully completing college. Developmental, financial, logistical, psychological, social, and substance abuse related issues represent just some of the many serious challenges that students are likely to face. And if left “unchecked,” any one of these is enough to sideline just about any student (being no respecter of persons, regardless of background or pedigree!).

In fact, are you aware that between the ages of 18 – late 20’s brain prefrontal and frontal lobe connections are being made for the first time? This helps explain why an otherwise seemingly perfectly normal college student can experience the sudden onset of serious psychological symptoms (anxiety and depression leading the way) which formerly lay dormant through the middle- and high school years? This can absolutely devastate a students’ academic plans. And onset of psychological symptoms represent the leading cause of academic withdrawal in the United States today.  

This helps explain why forty-three percent of students who enroll in a college or university in America today will not graduate, even after 6 years. And what is especially startling about this statistic is that if a student is going to fail, more than half the time it will be in his or her freshman year!

However (and this is a big however!), the good news is that as a result of reading this book, your chances of successfully graduating from college are likely to climb exponentially—helping to ensure that you will not become an academic statistic. So stop stressing! (Ooh, I feel the goose bumps forming already!) 

In fact, if you will do three simple things: 1) pay close attention to the most common reasons students fail, as outlined in Part One, 2) consider my personal story, Part Two, and 3) learn about and apply the simple and easy to use cognitive, social, and goals strategies and techniques as outlined in Parts Two, Three and Four, then you will likely succeed.