Read everything
I am out of the office today, so this is a pre-post.
At the start of every semester, we ask parents and families to help us reinforce a message we want new students to hear: read everything. Some examples of what we want students to do:
Read the syllabus for class. All the pages. All the details.
Read every email you get from a faculty member or an administrator, because that is how administrative and academic processes will be communicated to you.
Read all the requirements listed on study abroad or other applications. Especially read the deadlines and due dates.
Read the requirements for majors in the Academic Bulletin, or the Student Code of Conduct.
Read the fine print. Even (or maybe especially) when the email or document is long.
And if something does not make sense or is unclear, ask the sender for clarification right then and there, because you will be held accountable for the contents – whether you have read them or not.
This sounds elementary, I know, but we have so many situations where a student misses a deadline, doesn’t fulfill a requirement, loses out on an opportunity, or runs afoul of a policy because they did not read the fine print or just didn’t read carefully enough. And then they are upset about the consequences.
Sometimes the consequences are relatively harmless, and sometimes they are not. Over the years, I have seen students not read emails saying they had an unpaid tuition bill or financial hold, and then they could not register for classes on time (and had to watch all their classes get picked up by other students until they could pay the fee the next morning). I have seen students not read the fact that applications for study abroad programs or other things were being accepted on a rolling basis, and then the program is nearly filled by the time the student submits their application and the competition is stiffer.
Reading everything is a good habit to get in. It’s not a good look to be unaware of details that have been sent to you. One day, your students will have to make good impressions on potential (or actual) bosses, and you don’t want to be the person who is caught unawares and makes a bad impression.
It’s also important to remember that we want the students to read everything (we are not asking you to!) Your students need to be the ones to be on top of all the details. So as loved ones, if you see in the Daily Deac that an email went out to all students about X, you can give them a bump towards action – “I think I saw that a message went out about X. Please be sure you have checked your Wake email and read it” – but don’t read the message yourself and summarize/remind/act for them.
Easy to say, hard to do, I know (I fight this all the time with my high school junior). But your students will be better served by doing these things themselves.