But, I want to get a good job when I graduate so I can help my family. I'm the first in my family to get to college. I have a brother and two sisters who want to go someday and I'm going to help them, so I need to make a lot of money. I've heard the salaries that engineering graduates are making, so I know there is big money to be made in this field. But, sometimes I feel like I have no life and I'm really starting to doubt myself and wonder if its worth it. What should I do? I just recently saw a BLACK COLLEGIAN magazine, so I thought Id write to you. As an African American, I feel a lot of pressure to succeed. I do not want anyone in my college or my mother to know that I'm thinking like this. I want to make the right decision, but I donut want to be pressured by my family or my academic advisor right now. I appreciate any ideas or comments you would like to make regarding my situation and I promise to consider them carefully. 

Dear Jerranne:  

I do hope you will really take time to analyze what you are doing in your classes and why you decided to pursue a degree in the sciences in the first place, before you decide to walk away from it. Engineering is a difficult major requiring excellent academic preparation and intense study. By going to a community college, you may have been taking some necessary prerequisites to allow you to be admitted directly into engineering. Taking courses did not necessarily guarantee that the work would be easier or that you would be more advanced than the other students in your classes. Students pursuing degrees in engineering are some of the brightest students in colleges and universities across the country. So naturally, you will find the quest for good grades to be influenced by the quality of students who are in the classroom with you. In your case, remember you are there with the best and brightest.  

I am very concerned by the way you have described your life on campus. It is very important to look very closely at your study habits to determine whether you might be able to change your strategy to achieve better academic results and to have some social outlets. You mention studying all the time. Have you taken any study-skills classes lately to determine whether you are studying effectively? Do you ever study with a study group? Research shows that African Americans do far better when they study in groups and this is particularly true in engineering, where faculty members frequently assign group projects. Are you actively participating in group study sessions? If not, why not? If you do not know about them in your college, find out about them from your academic advisor. Study groups can also be a social outlet for you. Often meaningful friendships and other activities are positive outgrowths of study groups.  

How do your instructors feel about your academic progress? Meet with them and explore ways of improving your grades. Do they feel that your academic expectations are reasonable? You need to know this. If they too are concerned about your progress ask for their suggestions and support. Remember that you must work with your faculty not in spite of them! Have you considered getting a tutor? Again, this may be another support system that you should take advantage of to improve your academic performance.  

Importantly, do not feel alone and do not tackle this problem alone. There is current research underway that is examining why undergraduates leave the sciences, because the nation as a whole is experiencing a decline in the number of  students graduating in science, mathematics and engineering. The research shows that sometimes straight-A students from high school are truly shocked by having to work so hard in college only to end up with a C grade. Sometime the pace of classes and the difficulty of the subject matter are beyond anything they may have experienced up to this point. Some faculty then grade on the curve, so then students are confronted by intense classroom competition. Student stress is intensified, when students have to drop courses to keep up their grade point averages, especially those on scholarship. And stress is further intensified when students encounter inaccessible or insensitive faculty who use poor teaching methods. Understandably, these factors tend to cause self-doubt and a desire to escape. I hope that you can see that some of the very things you are experiencing are shared concerns that many other students have had to learn how to overcome. You can do so too. 

The most important thing to do right now is to determine just how many of these stress factors you are experiencing an how they can be modified or alleviated. While I can understand not wanting to be pressured by your parent or an academic advisor, who may be partial to your staying in a particular program, I am certain that they and others can be objective, if you help them to understand that you are already felling stress and do not need to receive further pressure form them. But, move on to someone else, if you still feel uncomfortable sharing your concerns with them at this time. 

You do need more help than I can give you in this column, so please talk to an impartial person such as the career counselor or a psychologist in the counseling center at your university as soon as you can, and certainly before you drop anything. Believe me, these people are very skilled at listening and advising, and not telling you what to do. They will assist you in thinking through your situation and possible options and will guide you towards making an informed decision. The important thing to know is that they deal with these kinds of concerns all the time and will not be surprised by your feelings of anxiety, self-doubt and desire to get relief. They will help you break your challenges down into manageable parts, and then they will work with you to identify appropriate strategies for resolving your difficulties. Your will feel a great deal of relief just having someone to talk with and to share your frustration. Remember, no skilled person takes your choices away from you in this process. They just make sure that you understand all the choices available, and then they support you as you decide what you want to do. I hope this advice helps you. 

Linda Bates Parker is your Online Campus Advisor. She has authored the Campus Advisor column for THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine for over 13 years. Parker is the director of the Career Development Center at the University of Cincinnati and president of Black Career Women a national organization.

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