College Life through the Eyes of Students

Presents the perspectives of contemporary college students on their lives and educations.

Presents the perspectives of contemporary college students on their lives and educations.

The struggles and achievements of today's college students are thrown into stark relief in this fascinating account of how such students make meaning of their lives. Author Mary Grigsby uses the voices of students themselves to discuss how they view, adjust to, and participate in the college student culture of a large midwestern university and to explore what they think of their educational experiences. Topics include a look at a typical day on campus, student subcultures and the lifestyles they engender, whether college life conforms to the images and scenarios of popular culture, and student approaches to making it through college. Going to college has become the major coming-of-age experience for many people in the United States, and Mary Grigsby has provided a compelling, readable, and up-to-date account of this formative period.

Mary Grigsby is Associate Professor of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri. She is the author of Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement, also published by SUNY Press.

Mary Grigsby is Associate Professor of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri. She is the author of Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement, also published by SUNY Press.

"Going to college has become the major coming-of-age experience for many people in the United States, and the struggles and achievements of today's college students are thrown into stark relief in College Life through the Eyes of Students. Grigsby in this fascinating account of how such students make meaning of their lives provides a compelling, readable, and up-to-date account of this formative period." — SirReadaLot.org

"Too many of us in higher education 'guess' at the needs and desires of the students we serve. This book spells all this out in well-written, well-researched form." — Mary Chayko, author of Portable Communities: The Social Dynamics of Online and Mobile Connectedness