Carpe College! Book Launched

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Carpe College!December 10, 2013 

New Book Makes College Transition Easier

Great Gift for High School Seniors

Fairport, N.Y. – Mike Metzler, an educator with nearly two decades of high school and college teaching experience, has released Carpe College! Seize Your Whole College Experience, to help recent high school graduates and their families navigate the transition into college.

The book offers breadth and depth, covering matters first-year college students will encounter both inside and outside the classroom.  According to Paul Roche, parent of a college student who has benefitted from reading the book and hearing the author speak, “Metzler’s experience with both high school and college students becomes quickly evident.”

According to Metzler, “A typical college student’s day is a whirlwind of extremes, from engaging in lofty philosophical thought to managing mundane minutiae to cutting loose and blowing off steam.  So, the book parallels that experience.  It’s lofty one moment and silly the next.  Just like the students it hopes to help.”  It also recognizes that students are juggling a number of macro and micro challenges, like reflecting on career and life choices and managing their time, across both academic and social domains, all in the midst of trying to discover their emerging selves.

“The high school experience is laden with support and guidance from adults,” says Metzler, “and this has the potential to create passivity in some students, a bad habit that should be left behind when heading off to college.”  Carpe College! offers an approach that encourages students to be active and intentional about every aspect of their college experience.  It addresses interactions with peers and professors, career reflection and academic choices, dorm living and partying – teaching students to develop a mindset that helps them make the most of their fleeting college years.  To guide their pursuits, Metzler suggests a mantra that is laced throughout the book:  ‘Know thyself.  Have a plan.  Assume no one else cares.’  It is meant to remind students of the need to be reflective, organized and in control of their own destiny.

The book strikes a playful tone as evidenced by fun illustrations and quirky chapter titles, including “(Parents in Parentheses),” “Doorstops & Chopsticks,” “Five Alarm Mac-n-Cheese,” “Party Like a Smarty,” “Teenage Wasteland,” and “If You’re Cocky and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.”  While the tone is light, the material is substantive, including numerous tips and templates for academic planning, communicating with professors, contacting professionals, and seeing the link between a rich life outside the classroom and future success beyond the college years.