Taking care of student careful transition to university (A case-study of linguistics major at kazan federal university)

Abstract

© 2016 Sabirova et al.First-year students face the challenges of campus life right at the university entrance. The issue of transition of first-year students to the academic environment is crucial to determine their further development as individuals and future specialists. The paper aims at analyzing the expectations of freshmen and examining the degree of students’ satisfaction with the multicultural academic environment at Kazan Federal University, Russia. The findings will contribute to facilitating a timely transition into campus life and personal development of freshmen. The leading approach is observation and classification as well as interviewing, collecting, analyzing and synthesizing the data, received via interviews and survey. The authors conclude that three out of ten first-year students majoring in Linguists whose academic adaptation is assessed as extremely low should be paid special attention. Adaptation must be differentiated considering different student categories: gender, age, social and economic background, level of basic foreign and Russian language knowledge and skills. The materials of the research may be useful for applicants and university students as well as university staff and researchers who are willing to help students make the most of their academic years and become successful individuals and efficient specialists with a university degree.