When University College of Science biologists William and Sheri Wischusen designed the college’s boot camp in 2005 to give freshmen a leg up their first year, they didn’t realize how far the idea would spread.
Today, college freshmen across the country are enrolling in similar programs.
The Wischusens started the week-long Biology Intensive Orientation for Students, also known as BIOS, at the University’s College of Science to help prepare freshmen who typically struggle with the fast-paced and demanding first year.
After the first boot camp, the professors followed the group of students through their Biology 1201 classes, and those students out-performed all other students not enrolled in the program — and still students who take the boot camp continue to do better.
Since implementing the program at the University, 11 colleges around the nation have adopted a version of the program, 10 will be running versions of it within the next year and 16 are in the process of installing a boot camp program. At the University, College of Engineering and College of Art and Design have also adopted versions.
“Every [college] has the same problem,” William said. “Everybody is admitting students who are bright and motivated, but they’ve never been to college before and they don’t know what to expect.”
And that’s exactly what the Wischusens’ program does. It gives freshmen an idea of what to expect in a college classroom.
They get a sense of what the expectations are and learn skills like metacognition, different learning styles and material they see in actual biology classes, William said. Students attend real lectures each day and are given exams on that material.
Chemistry freshman Trelane Dunn attended the most recent boot camp for the College of Science, held the week before classes officially started, and said the program has already helped with the college experience so far.
Dunn attended lectures and learned valuable skills needed for studying and, most importantly, knew how to navigate campus before the hectic first day.
Biology senior Walter Guillory II attended the boot camp as a freshman and served as a mentor at this year’s installment of the program. He used his experiences over the past four years to give advice to the incoming freshmen.
Guillory said he’s thankful for having gone through the boot camp, and said it prepared him for college and helped him meet friends. Guillory said he recommends all students give the program a try.
“It opened my eyes to how difficult college was actually going to be,” he said. “It helped me to get my mind in gear really fast.”
“It opened my eyes to how difficult college was actually going to be. It helped me to get my mind in gear really fast.”