Dear SCLA’ers:
In my last letter I wrote about the worry of a few of my undergraduate students that, in choosing
references for graduate school, their professors would not remember them. Of course, I offered a few
pointers which should eliminate such “worry.” What I probably didn’t say is that I found my students to
be more worried than they should have been. Almost afraid to fail in securing an appropriate place in
the next stage of their education. They all had excellent grades and GRE/MCAT/GMAT scores but their
concern seemed exaggerated. Fast forward to a conversation I recently had with the author of a new
book, “Fearless Freshman Year.” I wondered whether such a title would have been used in any previous
decade, that is, what should be “feared” about embarking on a first year of college and why was there a
need for a book to make a student’s freshman year “fearless.”
