The estimated prevalence of neurodivergent (ND) conditions is approximately 15-20% of the population in the United States (Doyle, 2020; Maenner et al., 2023). ND students are increasingly enrolling in mainstream colleges and universities (Bakker et al., 2019) but report that they are not receiving adequate support on campus (Dexter et al., 2024;…

Purpose: Peer mentoring programs in higher education settings support incoming students in their transition and adaptation to college life. Mentoring program evaluation research primarily focuses on student outcomes and documents mentoring relationship quality (MRQ) as an important component of programs that facilitate change. The current study…

Most children starting primary school in Australia do so after attending early childhood education and participating in a transition to school programme. While this has become the expected pathway, it is not the one followed by all children and their families. In this article, we describe visible transitions as those that are known, understood and…

This qualitative case study examined Ph.D. students' perceptions of the impact of a full semester introductory course at a Tier-1 research institution. Results from multiple data sources including open-coded interviews and reflective entries yielded three overarching perceptions of the impact of the introductory class by its first-year students:…

With the rise of international education in the Asia-Pacific, Chinese students have become a key demographic in Australian universities. However, cultural differences between China and Australia often challenge these students' adaptation. Drawing inspiration from the growing trend in the modern entertainment industry, researchers have explored…

This article relays the author's experiences and lessons learned after she was selected to serve as the faculty coordinator for first-year student scheduling at her institution. The new assignment to run the first-year scheduling function in the summer was supposed to be a way to do something interesting and engaging in the summer. It turned out…

Many new students are struggling to succeed in the current college environment. The mental health crisis and the pandemic have only increased this struggle. Communication centers should partner with student orientation in order to increase student retention, alongside familiarizing students with the communication center from the beginning of their…

Whereas many college freshmen succeed during their first year, some struggle with transitioning. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive generic study was to examine the difficulties some high school graduates experience adapting to the college social environment. First-year college students often have feelings of homesickness, isolation,…

The literature on international students predominantly emanates from the Western perspective and offers rich insights into international students' adaptation experiences. While university services improve these experiences, limited studies have investigated the role of pre-support assistance prior to students' arrival. This paper fills that gap…

In this study, the orientation of the first-grade primary school students to school was ensured by creative drama activities. Activities that lasted 21 hours were applied to ensure that the students adapted to the school, their friends, their teachers, school staff, and places in the school. Parents, classroom teacher, 19 students and two…

The first year at university is critical to students' later academic development. The first year, however, is also the time when students are most vulnerable to disengagement and dropout. Therefore, identifying students most at risk of disengagement as well as the classroom environment factors that drive or undermine student classroom engagement…

Expectations of campus safety and security are inherent in the development of policies internal to the campus environment as well as to national regulations inclusive of Title IX, the Clery Act, and so forth. Yet, there seems to be an ongoing concern that international students may have heightened risk or are less likely to report violations of…

Background: The short-term impacts of outdoor orientation programs (OOPs) have been documented in the literature for close to 40 years. While there is a fair amount of research examining the immediate effects of OOPs, there are relatively few studies exploring long-term impacts. Purpose: This study examined the important longitudinal "lessons…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive research was to explore how students described their experiences within a semester-long, new-student orientation program as contributing to their year-to-year re-enrollment at a community college in Arizona. Two research questions guided the stud. Exhaustive review of prior research indicated the…

Purpose: This study aims to explore the use and perceptions of social media among university students before and during their transition from high school to higher education. Design/methodology/approach: This exploratory, cross-sectional study uses an online survey of 312 undergraduate students at a large public research university in the USA.…