Types and advantages of tutoring

.

Tutoring has become a powerful education tool for academic success of all students of all levels and types. According to Fager, J. (1996) tutoring helps to increases mastery of academic skills, improves self-esteem and self-confidence, improves students’ attitude towards school, reduces dropout rates, truancies, and tardies, breaks down social barriers, and creates new friendships, and provide emotional support and positive models. There are mainly three tutoring types: (i) peer tutoring, (ii) cross-age tutoring, or (iii) parent /volunteer tutoring. And the three main participants are (a) students, (b) tutors, and (c) teachers, and each type and participants could benefit from tutoring as follows as described by Fager:

Peer tutoring: this is a one-on-one tutoring process where the tutor is the same age, grade, or academic status as the tutees. And has the following advantages:

• Convenient vis-à-vis other forms of tutoring for it is constrained within one class with one group of children
• Can be conducted at lower costs- cost-effective 
• Since both tutors and tutee are in a similar age group, they can speak the same language and have similar interest 

Cross-Age Tutoring: This is when the tutor is older than the tutees and has the following advantages:

• The age difference could give additional advantages on top of the advantages of peer tutoring
• It may increase tutees self-esteem via sharing ideas with an older and higher status friend
• Prevents the possible inferiority complex children might experience with tutee of the same age

  Parent/Volunteer Tutoring: This is where the tutor is outside the school tutor students and has the following benefits

• Puts parents and other community members in touch with the school
• Creates and advocates for the school and the tutoring process in general 
• Reduces distraction- adult-student pairs generally do not get as distracted as student-student pairs, thus creating less of a need for teacher supervisor 

Tutoring also will benefit each participant:

Tutees:

• Gives tailored to individualized students’ learning styles 
• Help students’ progress at their own pace
• Increased praise, feedback, and encouragement over what they might receive from one teacher 
• Skills demonstrated instead of just verbalized 

Tutors: 

• Gives a sense of pride and accomplishment for having helped someone 
• Increase academic masterly
• Gives a greater sense of dedication to their instruction
• Increase self-esteem, confidence, and sense of adequacy 

Teachers:

• Allow teachers to undergo more technical and professional tasks
• Increased personal monitoring of individual student’s progress
• Personal gratification seeing the rewards reaped by both tutors and tutee 

Hence, by volunteering one/two hours to the schools our kids are attending or to our community college, we can get the psychological benefit of a sense of pride and accomplishment for having helped someone, improve our academic masterly. And we can contribute positively to the quality of education by letting our teachers focus on professional and technical tasks.

The importance of Emotional Intelligence on Student’s academic success

Psychologists argue emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) is equally important as the cognitive intelligence quotient (IQ) for students’ success. According to Kendra Cherry, EQ is too narrow defined and do not encompass full range of human intelligence for IQ is defined as:(a) visual and spatial processing, (b) knowledge of the world, (c) fluid reasoning, (d) working memory and short-term memory, and (e) quantitative reasoning. On the other hand, EQ which defined as the ability to: (a) identifying emotions, (b) evaluating how others feel, (c) controlling one’s own emotions, (d) perceiving how others feel, (e) using emotions to facilitate social communication, and (f) relating to others. There are ample empirical findings evidence that show EQ is positively and significantly related to success which shows as important or more important than cognitive intelligence which is commonly believed to be the primary factor that determine academic success . 

Adapted from https://www.aureusgroup.com/ taken on 7/29/2021

For example, according to Abe, J.A.A (2011) using Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), they have found that emotions and emotional intelligence are positively correlated with complex constructs such as successful experiential learning. Similarly,  Extremera, N., & Rey, L. (2016) have also studied the link between emotional intelligence (EQ) and how it affects academic performance using a wide sample of 721 Spanish undergraduate studies. Accordingly, EQ has been found to positively associated with life satisfaction and a positive attitudinal affect and inversely correlated with a negative affect.

 Lyons, J. B., & Schneider, T. R. (2005)  have also examined the relationship of ability-based EQ facets with performance under stress and found EQ dimensions were related to performance after controlling for cognitive ability. The association of EQ and academic success have also been found to be established across different countries. For example, Soliman, E., Fayed, A. et al (2017) examined the relationship between academic achievement and emotional intelligence among female medical students in Saudi Arabia and found out a significant correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement. However, interpreting the positive association needs to be carefully understood for it should not be mislead with causality. The positive association association between academic success and imitational intelligence could be either emotional intelligence causes academic success or academic success causes emotional intelligence or a third factor that affects both variables leads them move together.

In summary, a growing number of empirical evidence are showing the importance of emotional intelligence for a holistic success of academic achievement of students across countries. Hence, policy makers, educators, and parents need to focus on factors that help children develop better emotional intelligence.  

References 

Abe, J. A. A. (2011). Positive emotions, emotional intelligence, and successful experiential learning. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(7), 817-822.

Extremera, N., & Rey, L. (2016). Ability emotional intelligence and life satisfaction: Positive and negative affect as mediators. Personality and Individual Differences, 102, 98-101.

Lyons, J. B., & Schneider, T. R. (2005). The influence of emotional intelligence on performance. Personality and individual differences, 39(4), 693-703.

Soliman, E., Fayed, A., Al Mussaed, E., Alawad, H., & Elradi, D. (2017). Impact of emotional intelligence on level of academic achievement in a sample of Saudi female medical student. European Psychiatry, 41(S1), s908-s909.

The Impact of Parents’ Attitude on Kids’ Math Performance

According to (sources)  math and reading scores have dropped in the US for the fourth and eighth-graders since 2017. Saritas, T., & Akdemir, O. (2009) studied the primary factors that cause student’s low performance. Accordingly, they found out that instructional strategy and methods, teacher competency in math education, and motivation are the three most important factors that determine the performance of students in math though other factors like intelligence, age, socio-economic status of parents/guardians, residential area, daily study hours, etc. also affect performance. Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2016) also argued poor performance is attributed to a bad attitude which in turn stems from lack of motivation.

Thus, the feedback effects of attitude and motivation entail educators need to understand the antecedents of attitude and their consequences.  Usually, teachers complain about the student’s bad attitude towards math. The question is what they can do to adjust students’ attitudes in addition to having on the subject matter.

Hence, Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2016) attitudes of students/workers into three components such as affect, behavioral intent, and thought (cognition). 

• Affect the emotional element of an attitude of students to math. For example, “I like math” or “I prefer biology than math” 
• Behavioral intent: the behavioral intent of students towards math or any other subject. “I want to drop this math course” or “I want to transfer to another department because I don’t want to take math”
• Thought: this refers to the student’s perception of the subject. For example, “I believe Asians are good at math”

Students derive their attitudes through social learning which is learning from observing the model that includes parents/guardians, peer groups, religious organizations, and culture. So, to adjust students’ attitudes towards math, it is imperative to adjust the models’ attitudes. 

References:

1. Across the Board, Scores Drop in Math and Reading for U.S. Students | Education News | US New

2 .Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2016). Orgb. Cengage Learning

3. Saritas, T., & Akdemir, O. (2009). Identifying factors affecting the mathematics achievement of students for better instructional design. International Journal of Instructional Technology and distance learning, 6(12), 21-36.

The Link between Math Phobia and Math Achievement

Math phobia also known as math anxiety is intense fear and a negative emotional reaction to math. Math phobia is different from dyscalculia, which is a disability to: (i) understand numbers, (ii) learning how to manipulate numbers, (iii) performing mathematical calculations, (iv) and learning facts in math. However, Devine, A., Hill et al (2018) found out that children with developmental dyscalculia were twice as likely to have high math phobia as children with typical math performance. Similarly, Barroso, C., Ganley, et al (2021)have figured out a negative association between math phobia and math achievement founding a robust association of these two variables. Accordingly, students who report high feeling of phobia toward math tend to have lower math achievement. And the negative association starts in childhood and remains through adulthood, with younger students exhibiting less phobia than older students.  

Another meta-analysis by Zhang, J., Zhao, et al (2019) indicates a robust negative math anxiety-performance correlation using a meta-analysis of 49 studies. They show the link of math phobia-performance varies by geographic region, grade level, etc, with math phobia -performance being strong among Asian students than European/American students, more in senior high school student’s vis-a-vis secondary or primary school students, and on students using custom tests that use to assess problem-solving skills. 

 The anxiety-performance link has the following two theoretical foundations:

(a)   processing efficiency theory: anxiety (worry) reduces the processing and storage capacity of working memory which in turn reduces the resources available for a math task.

(b)   attentional control theory: assumes that anxiety impairs the efficient functioning of the goal-directed attentional system. 

Cambridge University has also drawn three possibly theories on math anxiety and math performance as in following :

According to Cambridge researchers, math anxiety math performance related as follows: 

1. Math phobia leads to poor math performance and forms a feedback loop 
2. Math phobia has both mental and emotional aspects 
3. Math phobia affects a significant proportion of school and university students of all ages, as well as adults; girls are more prone than boys 
4. Math anxiety affects working memory
5. Teachers who experience math anxiety may induce it in students , especially female teachers, and female students

Parents and educators could help reduce the impact of anxiety on students performance,  and help kids have better number sense through:

Parents:

1. providing a home learning environment: playing math games and activities blocking and number rhymes activities
2. refraining from transferring their math anxiety to their kids

Educators : design a curriculums that ensures

1. Conceptual understanding
2. Communication using symbols
3. Fluency
4. Logical reasoning
5. Strategic competence

References

Barroso, C., Ganley, C. M., McGraw, A. L., Geer, E. A., Hart, S. A., & Daucourt, M. C. (2021). A meta-analysis of the relation between math anxiety and math achievement. Psychological Bulletin, 147(2), 134.S

Devine, A., Hill, F., Carey, E., & Szűcs, D. (2018). Cognitive and emotional math problems largely dissociate: Prevalence of developmental dyscalculia and mathematics anxiety. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(3), 431.

Zhang, J., Zhao, N., & Kong, Q. P. (2019). The relationship between math anxiety and math performance: A meta-analytic investigation. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1613.

Math skill, teachers quality, computer games and academic performance

Most parents wonder whether their kids math skill at primary and secondary school predicts their success in later grades and careers. Researchers conducted different surveys to corroborate this association or lack thereof. Arnold, I. J., & Straiten, J. T. (2012) have found out motivation and math skills in secondary school (year 12-16) determine student’s success in their first-year economics programs. This study was conducted in the Netherlands using factor analysis based on a survey of students at Erasmus School of Economics. However, they have also figured out an interesting finding that intrinsic motivation of students is as important as math skills for success for those students who have less skill in math.   

On the other hand, Belfield, C., Britton, et al (2019) have shown studying economics or medicine, which requires a high level of number literacy appears to increase earnings by more than 20 percent for men compared to students who studied creative arts, English, or philosophy, which demands low math skill. The difference has been found bigger for women with their earnings increased by around 60 percent than their counterparts who studied less quantitative skills. However, these studies forgot the impact of idiosyncratic factor which is the cognitive ability of each individual student, and teacher’s quality and experience. In this regards, Rockoff, J. E. (2004) have shown a one-standard-deviation increase in teacher quality raises test scores by approximately 0.1 standard deviations in reading and math showing the impact of individual teachers quality on students’ achievement in addition to their math skill.

Many parents are worried about the impact of computer games on students’ math achievement. To find out this dilemma Kim, S., & Chang, M. (2010) have empirically examined the effect of playing computer games on math achievements of 4th-grade students focusing on gender and language minority groups. Using 170,000 U.S 4th grade students found out English-speaking students who played computer math games showed significantly lower math achievement than those who never played. On the other hand, they have gotten positive effects of daily computer use among male students whose first language was other than English. Male language minority students who daily played computer games in math demonstrated higher math performance scores compared with their male English-speaking counterparts who never played. However, they found no significant difference in math skills between minority languages English-speaking female students.

 Finally, Larry Terrazzo  has shared  the following  instruction approaches of the known educators  that  help  raise teacher quality and   students achievement by implication.    

Source: https://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/files/2021/07/thesinglemosteffectivegarcia.png

References

Arnold, I. J., & Straten, J. T. (2012). Motivation and math skills as determinants of first-year performance in economics. The Journal of Economic Education, 43(1), 33-47.

Belfield, C., Britton, J., Buscha, F., Dearden, L., Dickson, M., Van der Erve, L., … & Zhu, Y. (2019). The impact of undergraduate degrees on early-career earnings: Research report: November 2018.

Kim, S., & Chang, M. (2010). Computer games for the math achievement of diverse students. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 13(3), 224-232.

Rockoff, J. E. (2004). The impact of individual teachers on student achievement: Evidence from panel data. American economic review, 94(2), 247-252.

The Vicious Circle of War, Illiteracy and Poverty in Ethiopia

Adapted from St John’s Church

The current situation in my home country is troubling to me personally as I have a firsthand experience of war atrocities during my childhood. I was in elementary school when the radical nationalist group had controlled our village. At that time, all services including schools were closed for the government administration moved to the nearby towns where the federal government had control. So, we were given three options: leave, joined the rebels or drop from school permanently. I was lucky enough to go to the nearby town where my uncle was living and pursued my education. However, most of the kids who had not that chance had been forced to join the rebels or dropped from school for good.

Psychologists and economist could study the factors that drove youths to sign up for the rebels which is very costly endeavor , but in my personal opinion, hopelessness (poverty) and false nationality sentiment used by the the rebels to recruit kids . In Ethiopia civil war the rebels came to power after a prolonged 17 years war and thousands of lives lost in both sides.

However, the majority of Ethiopians have opposed the rebels from the outset for they’ve divided the country in to 9 States (regions) based on ethnic lines a very dangerous politics for country like Ethiopia which has 84 different ethnic groups. The rebels were not able create a stable county because they constituted only only 6 percent of the Ethiopia population. Thus they were ousted by the popular movement in 2018 after they had ruled Ethiopia for 27 years. Unlike most revolutions in Africa, it was the smoothest and bloodless revolution.  However, having an upper hand of the economic and financial resources of the country for 27 years, it was not acceptable by these group , so they started a new war against the federal government in November 2020. Hence, the federal government has won the war in three weeks for over 94 percent of the population supported the government. Like many civil wars in Africa was compounded with atrocities of sexual and human rights violations .

Currently, the fight has still continued and so many lives have been lost in both sides because schools are closed . The rebels have started controlling new villages in recent days and the vicio circles of poverty, lack of education and immigration continues . Schools are completely shutdown for almost a year now in the whole region that the rebels have control.  Many years have passed since I have witnessed the civil war, but my memory is still fresh about the impact of civil war.

Shocking reports are coming out showing rebels are recruiting child soldiers to continue the war.  Given schools are closed, and no services are given to the region, I believe hopelessness and frustration made kids join the rebels. As a result, influx of people have migrated into the neighboring countries.  Ethiopia being home for 115 million people which is equivalent to the population of Kenya (53 million), Sudan (43 million), Somalia (16 million), Eritrea (4 million) and Djibouti (1 million) combined, the international community need to carefully intervene to restore peace and stability for a failed Ethiopia’s could be costly and reversing the situation may not easy in a country like Ethiopia which are divided by ethnic groups.

Worse yet, the farmers in the war area are not able to plow their lands during this critical harvest season. This will lead not another circle of poverty in Ethiopia Specifically, the Tigray region, which is the main base of the rebels has been hit by several recurrent droughts including the one in 1984.

 In summary, the recurrent circle of war and illiteracy have been feeding each other to causes a vicious circle of poverty in Ethiopia for a half-century. One of the primary sources of these problems are the political elites and the primitive political system, which is based on ethnic lines, but its impact is not limited only to those elites who crafted this system, rather passes to the innocent public who have no role at all and to the international community. And I believe the international community could play a positive role by discoursing political parties that recruit their members based on ethnicity.

Why Children Lie?

• 

Most parents worry about why their children lie and wonder what causes their children to lie. However, according to this source lying is a normal a normal developmental process for children of all ages. Psychologists and economists alike study this subject for a long time both from the determinants side and its consequences. The main motivating factor that push researchers to conduct such studies is not because it has any harm on the kids at early age, rather this behavior could transcend to permanent personality trait which could be costly to treat at a later age. 

Children lie not only to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions, but to: (i) test boundaries between fantasy and reality, (ii) enhance self-esteem and gain approval, and (iii) to get the focus off themselves. According to Dr. Ross and Dr. Brady, parents can play a role in minimizing the incentives that make kids lie once they know about which function(s) cause(s) their children to lie. These group also argue behavioral treatments depends the severity of the problem, and whether it is pathological or compulsive lying. Pathological lying is when kids lie for no apparent reason, and presumably without planning or motive. On the other hand, compulsive lying happens when kids do it to get things they want to or to escape punishment. 

According to Dr. Roses, there are three levels of lies. (a) level 1 – this is a low-level lie that is not hearting anyone. It is usually caused by attention-seeking behavior. And parents could ignore it and refrain from asking follow-up questions. (b) level 2: If kids continue telling the inflated fantastical type of lie, parents could intervene by pointing out the behavior and advise them to tell what really happened instead of exaggerating things (c) level 3: this is where older kids lie about where they have been, or they have done their homework. The Psychologists advise if it passes the threshold may grow to pathological lying hence parents need to intervene by setting different consequence. To the minimum, could let their kids know there will be consequences for their actions. For example, if a child hit another child and lied about it, the consequences could be two-fold- for both hitting and lying. Hence the punishment could be separating them for a certain duration and having them write a sorry letter to the kid they hit. According to this source, parents need to give attention if the reasons their kids are lying is due to mental health issues such as trauma and abuse, anxiety, low self-esteem, personality disorder, or other mental health issues, they need to see a family therapy

Economists are also interested to identify factors that cause kids to lie. According to the Center for Economic Policy Research(CEPR), governments make huge economic on kids this behavior is beyond parents for it could affect tax evasion and other business ethics. Some economists also argue that a high level of lying could aggravate information asymmetry problems such as moral hazard and adverse selection highly prevalent issues in financial and secondhand goods markets. 

Johannes Abeler, Professor of Economics, St Annie College of Oxford using randomized treatment method has found that there is a significant difference between kid’s honesty varying by socio-economic characteristics of parents and gender of kids, with kids from high-income families and girl kids are more honest than kids from low-income families probably due to punishment in the latter. He also argued that parents/mentor’s intervention plays a significant impact in changing kids’ behavior. 

New Developments in the Horn of Africa and their implication on Illegal Immigration

The Horn of Africa is one of the volatile sub-region due to complex political and economic interactions. It consists of four internationally recognized countries (Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and Djibouti), and Somaliland which is de-facto State and not yet recognized by the international community.  The geographic proximity of this sub-region to the Middle East and North Africa might make the problems complicated for religious factor interacts with economic and political problems. Such factors have created two new counties- Eritrea and South Sudan in 1993 and 2011, respectively, and a third country seem on the verge of being born for a successionist militia from North Ethiopia has been waging a war for independence since November 2020. If successful, this new country would follow suit Somaliland for the federal government and the international community will not recognize it.  The international community has observed such developments unfolding, but not exerting enough force to stop the problem not to grow further. If the current trend continues the world may expect another landlocked de-facto state that would exacerbate the already fragile problem of the sub-region.

The political and economic implication of these new developments in the on aggravating the immigration problem is immense because over 136 million people live in this sub-region the majority of whom are tragically destitute already. 

In addition, the Grand Renaissance Dam (GRD) that Ethiopia is building on the river Nile (Abay) has become another source of dispute among Ethiopia Sudan, and Egypt. Egypt and Sudan are threatening Ethiopia with militarily to stop the dam. However unlikely this will become another source of instability in the sub-region. In this regard, the majority of the Middle East countries are supporting Egypt for they are members of the Arab League and religious alliance is more significant than any other factors, among others. And this development might create another division with the rest of Africa in the line of religion.

And this development by itself might cause another political crisis as we have witnessed in Yemen which was a proxy war field between Saudi Arabia and UAE on one hand and Iran and Qatar on the other. The international community has already learned enough the implication of failed States from Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc. It is not possible to contain problems within territories of troubled countries. The problem is highly contingent on the neighboring countries as we have all seen during the Arab Spring in 2011. 

I also believe the world has enough evidence of how illegal immigration was escalated following the economic sanction on Eritrea, which is home only to 4 million people. It seems repeating the same mistake by imposing the economic sanction on Ethiopia, which is home to 115 million people, with 70% o them 30 years or younger. Even the preliminary sanctions that was imposed on Ethiopia following the alleged atrocities in North Ethiopia during the November 2020 law enforcement measures might pose a substantial implication on aggravating illegal immigration. Any small measure might create a huge hopelessness and frustration on the country’s population which has high young unemployment rate, and on the brink of crisis.

The concern of correlation between bilingualism and language disorder by immigrant families

Language is a crucial tool to convey information, share ideas, and great friends smoothly. Some people believe that language disorder in children is related to speaking two or more languages. However, there is no scientific evidence that corroborates this correction. There are neurological tests that show bilingual children controls a smaller vocabulary than monolingual do, clinical assessments bilingual language acquisition is an effortless, efficient, and successful as monolingual acquisition (link).  

Parents may wonder why their child’s vocabulary knowledge comparing with his/her monolingual peers is lower and may wrongly associate with language delay. Ans this concern is mainly prevalent among immigrant families for their kids are exposed to home language and to additional languages simultaneously or sequentially. There are instances where it is difficult to discern language difficulties at early ages with a language disorder due to limitations of assessment tools which mainly conducted by monolinguals. According to (link) language in bilingual children develops in the following  four steps:

Silent period: this is a period where a child will not seem to talk both at home or school, and it may take her/him an average of 6 months to adjust to new environment. 

Interference and code-switching: This are a period where bilingual children have interferences and code-switching phenomenon while translating to become effective communicators that takes one and a half years, on average.

  Basic social communication: This is a period that normally takes two years after a bilingual child has been exposed to an additional language, where she develops basic social communication to interact with peers.

Language proficiency: This is a period that takes 5-7 years after a child has been exposed    to a new language.

In summary, bilingualism does not cause language disorder. Vocabulary differences between bilinguals and monolinguals are only a transitory thing that will narrow down later in their age. According to  CDC Children have language and speed delay only when they have difficulties both in their home language and the new language after they pass through a rigorous assessment test. Hence, the negative view about bilingualism has no scientific foundation. Clinical research shows bilingualism has a significant impact on a positive cognitive functioning of children’s’ brain. Researches show bilingual children have equivalent or better performance than their monolingual counterparts.  So, it is imperative to discern the issue of language disorder in early symptoms of language developmental issues observed in bilingual children with language or speech impairment.

Four things immigrant students need to consider before choosing a college program

Identifying an academic program is a very challenging step for most non-traditional immigrant students because of the lack of enough information and uncertainties. In my opinion, the following four factors are crucial to make decision and be successful afterwards.

Career opportunities: return for education varies across countries and fields of studies but choosing a program that help secure a job after graduation is not an easy task for most immigrant students because getting a job depends on many factors including demand for the program in the labor market, rank of the University/Program, academic stand of the student, etc. According to best jobs in 2021. Among top occupations with the low unemployment rate, high job growth rate, and high median salary, Physician Assistants, software developers, nurse practitioners, and Statisticians are among the few that Immigrant students could consider especially those who have related backgrounds and interests. I chose these programs because their requirements are not stringent enough compared to other high-paying jobs. 

Interest: There is a strong association between self-interest and success that works for both individuals and the macroeconomy. So, before we decide on any field of study, we have to make sure that we have a permanent interest that will not die out when we face challenges. In addition, education is a long journey with high opportunity and out-of-pocket costs. Specifically, there are some situations where the return to higher education graduates might be not higher than high school graduates. So, if our goal is only to achieve a financial goal through education, we might end frustrated because of enthusiasm and correlated with only permanent interest. 

Cost: College education is a costly endeavor in the U.S. Though tuition, room, and board, and transportation costs vary by state, program, in-state/out-of-state, public/private non-profit colleges, etc, according to the College Board’s, on average, a four-year program costs in the range of $90,000- $180,000, depending on where you attend. Hence, having full information about different types of funds is a very crucial step for an immigrant student to consider. Though scholarship could be available for few students awarded based on academic performance, scholarly promise, athletic or artistic aptitude, cultural and economic backgrounds, and financial need, student loans are the major source of finance to immigrant students that could be federal loans, private loans, State and Institutional loans, etc. So, immigrant students need to have a brief overview of the pros and cons of each student loan type before enrolling in any program because these loans will be paid back with interest.

Grades. Once a student is enrolled, his/her academic standing is the main factor that helps to be eligible for further funds and scholarships. Hence, students should be vigilant in their performance. In most cases, having good grade also help to get a scholarship and creates an opportunity for further education. 

In conclusion, the web is crowded with a lot of information, but could be overwhelming and difficult to process especially for immigrant students like myself. So, I thought this information could help give some insight if you are at the beginning of your college journey. You can follow me via my @EndeshawEndesh1 for further questions or comments.