ADHD+Being A College Freshman= Major Transition
Posted on December 06, 2012 by Mike Nachman, One of Thousands of ADD ADHD Coaches on Noomii.
ADHD college freshman leave home and a major reality shift takes place. Most of the time that shift brings trouble.
Realization
I remember the moment my freshman year that it happened. I was sitting in my dorm room drinking a beer and there was a knock at my door. I nervously shoved my beer into a desk drawer; it was only the guy across the hall.
After he left I continued drinking my beer I thought to myself, “What in the heck am I doing? My parents aren’t here. I don’t have to worry about anything.”There was the issue, “I don’t have to worry about anything.”
If didn’t have my head shoved in a case of beer I would have realized:
-I don’t have a bell telling me when to head over to English class
-I don’t have a parent banging on my door to wake me up
-I don’t have teachers that know my name or my parent’s phone number
-I don’t have friends that I’ve known my whole life
-I don’t have a kitchen table downstairs. I have to walk about ½ a mile to eat
-I don’t have anybody checking up on me to make sure I’m doing my work
-I don’t have a parent saying, “you have a test are you going to study for it?”
I also should have realized the power struggles I had with my parent’s, high school teachers and administrators were over and done with. I had a new power struggle and a new opponent; myself.
So much goes into being a successful college student that nobody teaches you or tells you in high school. Some parents’ drop their kid off at the dorm; pray things go well and take a hand’s off approach. Other’s stick with the old road of forcing things, and that only leads to dodged phone calls, unanswered emails and awkward meals your first trip home freshman year.
Transitioning from a comfortable and consistent environment to a college campus can toss the brain of an ADHD 18 year-old into a tailspin. Everything you’ve ever known has been told to you, drilled into you, and forced on you.
Now that you are in a new reality and you have the power to write your own rules, what will they look like? Do you need help?
According to a 2005 study done by The Education Trust, a Washington based nonprofit group, 63% of students who enroll in a four-year university will earn a degree, and it takes an average of 6 years to do it. In the group of students not represented in the 63%, 37% will either drop out of college before finishing or flunk out.
I will answer the question for you: Yes you need help. Don’t wait for the transition to force you back into an old reality: living with mom and dad again.
