SPSU freshmen get Jump Start on college experience

by Lindsay Field
lfield@mdjonline.com The Marietta Daily Journal

MARIETTA ? For the third year in a row, Southern Polytechnic State University is opening its campus early for incoming freshman to get a ?jump start? on the college life.

The school, which has more than 1,100 freshmen enrolled for the fall semester, is welcoming a group of about 60 new students, including 14 from Cobb County, for the Jump Start program Monday.

Between Monday and the beginning of the fall semester in mid-August, students will have a chance to live on campus, eat in the school cafeteria, meet professors and classmates and earn college credits before their freshman counterparts do.

Throughout the summer, students will get to attend meet-and-greets each Thursday night with administrators, as well as special events like bowling and movie nights, said Gary Bush, the school?s director of admission and recruitment.

Anthony Barrett, an 18-year-old who graduated from Hillgrove High School in Powder Springs in May, learned about the program after speaking to a Southern Poly professor who visited his school last spring.

?I felt like it?d be easier to acclimate into college life before the rapid influx of other freshman in the fall, and they offered major specific classes so I could take game design classes during the summer,? he said. ?The hard part was actually getting here, but now that I?m here, bring it on.?

Barrett, the son of Sandra and John Barrett, is the only student from Cobb who chose to live on campus during Jump Start. He will be living in the Hornet Village Suites.

Barrett, who plans on studying computer game design and development, can earn up to seven college credits this summer.

?I?ve grown up with video games my entire life, and that just seemed like the best choice for me because I?m good at programming and like games,? he said.

Katrina Robinson, 17, is another Cobb County student who decided to participate in the program. However, she won?t be living on campus, choosing instead to commute from her parent?s Kennesaw home.

?I wanted to get comfortable with the campus and atmosphere and everything before actually starting fall semester, when everybody is here,? she said. ?It seemed like a really great program when I heard about it.?

Robinson graduated from Kennesaw Mountain High in May and learned about Jump Start from her older sister, Tabitha Robinson, who graduated from Kennesaw Mountain in 2011 and will be a rising sophomore at Southern Poly next year.

?It gives them a chance to get introduced to college life without being overwhelmed,? said Robinson?s mother, Angel Robinson. ?There are fewer students, small class sizes, (and) they get to actually meet staff and faculty one-on-one and build a relationship with them ahead of time.?

Dr. Julie Newell, Southern Poly?s chair of the social and international studies department, started the program the summer of 2010.

?We created (Jump Start) with the idea of giving students eager to begin their college careers an opportunity to earn a credit in a couple of foundational courses while building solid foundations for their own success,? she said ?I can?t think of any project I?m more proud of in my work at SPSU than the Jump Start program.?

Newell?s been at the Marietta university for 20 years.

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