By Dr. Helen Williams and Dr. Nicola Roberts
Dr Helen Williams and Dr Nicola Roberts have published an article based on research into how Criminology students transition to higher education – ‘I just think it’s really awkward’ : transitioning to higher education and the implications for student retention, published with @SpringerNature in the international journal, Higher Education: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00881-1. Our paper identifies three different kinds of awkwardness experienced by new students – physical or geographical, academic and social. We note that these affect students’ engagement and enjoyment of their course and can be a factor in student attrition, even when students are very interested in their studies or very motivated to get a degree. We look at the strategies that could be employed to help ease the awkwardness of starting a new course and argue that these should be subject specific rather than more general, institutional approaches.