The Gate Way Script

Introduction: Welcome to The Gate Way

Professors Kelly, Hirata, & Johnson
Hello, I am Professor Kelly [and I am Professor Hirata and I am
Professor Johnson], and we are here to give you some advice on how
to make the most of your time at Colgate. Weve taught many first
year students in several different classes, and we also remember our
own days as students, struggling to adjust to college ourselves. As
researchers who study the science of learning, much of our advice
stems from empirical findings on how students learn and what sort of
strategies can enhance that learning. We have discussed our ideas
with Colgate students and professors from a range of disciplines, so
the tips we give should help no matter what you study.
The advice we offer may sound familiar, but we urge you to keep
listening. Its useful to hear this information again (and again)and to
hear it directly from Colgate professors and students. After all, this is
where you will be spending your next four years. The sooner you
understand what life is truly like at Colgate, the easier your transition
will be.
Every student arrives at Colgate with high hopes and big
expectations. Some students feel comfortable right away and are
successful and happy, academically and socially. We think we know
one major reason why: these students take their entire college
experience into their own hands. This mindset of success being
largely on you is the general theme of these 13 Gate Way modules.
Many students learn the lessons of the Gate Way only graduallyand
sometimes painfullyover their four years; We wanted to give you a
chance, before your first semester even starts, to get a jump on
making the most of your time at Colgate.
We wish you the very best. Good luck. Go Gate!

Dont Compartmentalize Yourself

Professor Kelly

In college, it is important to think of yourself as a whole person.

Although you are not always aware of it, every part of you affects, and
is affected by, every other part, all the time. Unfortunately, many

students do not appreciate this soon enough, and they create artificial
boundaries between things; for example, work versus play or school
versus the so-called, real world. These barriers can cause all sorts of
problems.
A lesson from the brain. As a comparison, consider how the human
brain works: although different regions do different things, each area
must have connections to every other area in order to function
properly. If you isolate any part of this neural network, the result is
brain damage and that compromises the functioning of the whole
brain.
Similarly, you naturally have different parts of your life you study,
you play, you compete, you work, you pray. These may seem like
isolated parts of you, but they are all connected on some level. If you
fail to see these connections, you are in danger of becoming
fragmented, and that compromises your functioning as a whole
person.
Pay attention to harmony and discord. As a first step to freeing
yourself from these compartments, look for places in which different
aspects of your life are in harmony. Doing that will remove some of
the barriers. As a next and harder step, look for where different
parts are in conflict. Consider the discord in the following
hypothetical scenarios:
An unbalance between work and play. If you are disciplined
when you work on school and sport, why would you be
undisciplined when you play with alcohol?
2. Actions speak louder than words. If you speak eloquently in
class about the importance of equality, what are the implications
of remaining silent outside of class when someone makes a
racial slur?
3. Do as I say, not as I do? If you rebel against gender stereotypes
with friends during the day, what would it mean to fall into those
stereotypes at parties during the night?
1.

Be honest with yourself. Honestly reflecting on lurking disparities

within yourself can offer deep insights. You may not be able to resolve
these conflicts right away, but trying to make sense of them will move
you forward and help you become a more integrated and enlightened
person in the long run.

Academic Success is More than Grade Deep

Professor Hirata
2

In high school, many of you were preoccupied by grades, and thats

understandable. Without an excellent GPA, you most likely would not
be attending Colgate.
Of course, grades are still important in college. But focusing too much
on them while you are here can detract from exploring really
important questions about yourself and the world around you: Whats
your passion? What do you really want to know about the world? Who
do you want to be? You may already have a sense of these things, but
college is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really explore them.
Here are five pieces of academic advice to guide you on your way:
1. Diversify. Try to take a wide range of classes, especially in your
first two years. These diverse perspectives will show you new
things, and help you see old things in new ways.
2. Be bold. Take intellectual risks. Go ahead, sign up for that
Arabic or Oceanography or Sculpture class, even if it brings you
outside your comfort zone. If you play it wafe now, you may
always wonder what might have been.
3. Go deep. Go beyond simply memorizing. Engage with your
classes in deeply intellectual and personal ways. If you can
relate what you learn to your own experience, that knowledge
will become uniquely yours.
4. Integrate. Just as its important not to compartmentalize
yourself, try not to think about your classes in isolation. Making
connections across coursesespecially across different
disciplinesis very rewarding, and will help you develop your
own views in a more complete way.
5. Share with others. Talk to othersfriends, professors, parents
talk to them about what you learn. College classes do not end
when the period is overtheyre just getting started. Some of
my best times in college were over beer and sake talking with
friends late into the night about new and exciting things I had
learned that day.
So, diversify, be bold, go deep, integrate, and share with othersIf
you do all these thingsyou will grow in ways you cannot imagine
right now. And trust me, once you make that leap, the good grades
often follow.

Seeking Help is a Sign of Strength, Not Weakness

Professor Johnson

You are going to college because you do not have it all figured out.
You are still discovering who you are, what the world is and how the
two fit together. Admitting this can be scary, and it takes a lot of
courage because by many objective standards, youve already figured
out a lot.
College is a new challenge, and almost all of you will face obstacles
that will require help. You should view asking for help not as a sign of
weakness, but strength. The most successful people in lifeelite
athletes, Nobel-winning scientists, billionaire entrepreneurstheyve
all sought out help at some point in their lives.
Go to office hours. If you are struggling in a class, go see your
professor. This is a sign of strength because you are demonstrating
that you recognize you need help and that you care about your
academics enough to ask for it. It is useful to think of professors as
more of mentor than evaluator, and know that they sought out help
when they were undergraduatesin fact, many of us still do. Crucially,
be sure to get help before a problem gets too large. It is easier for a
professor to help you before you take an exam than after you bomb it.
Some problems require extra help. College can be a very stressful
time, and you should know the difference between situationally
appropriate stress and reactions that would benefit from professional
assistance. Some students struggle with substance abuse, depression,
anxiety or unstable conditions at home. These are serious problems
that affect all aspects of life, and you must seek help for them. Please
know that there are resources on campus, such as the counseling
center, to help students address these problems, and you are
definitely not in the minority if you take advantage of them.
To repeat, it is a sign of strength, not weakness, to seek out help. I
know this is hard to comprehend if you have never struggled in school
up to this point, but please keep this advice in mind when things pile
up in your first year and you start to feel yourself slip. If you reach
out, we will be there to support you.

Be Open to Difference
With Professor Kelly
College is a festival of new things: new people, new places, new ideas.
The challenge is that your brain has already formed some pretty
strong ideas about yourself and your world.: how do you incorporate
all these new things into the views you already have?

Keep an open mind. To get the most out of college, you should keep an
open mind. Try to be flexible enough that your views are "useful
guides," but you aren't a servant to them. When experiencing
something new that challenges something old, the most successful
students carefully reflect on this conflict and are not afraid to change
what they believe.
People make all the difference. One of the best ways to develop and
expand your views is to be open to new types of people. You may
never again have so many opportunities to interact with people who
are so different from you, and perhaps more than any class you take,
exploring these differences will open you up in deeply personal ways.
Here is some advice about how to embrace these differences in and
outside of class:
In class. Try not to not dominate a class discussion with your own
views. Sure put them out there, but pay close attention to how they
relate to the views of others. Your peers are a significant part of your
learning experience. Colgate is so fortunate to have a student body
from all across America and all around the globe. Try to respect these
diverse perspectives even if they make you uncomfortable (in fact,
being uncomfortable is necessary for true intellectual growth). Doing
this will allow you to develop your own views in a more sophisticated
and worldly way.
Outside of class. Talk to people who are different from you. If that
makes you anxious, here is a simple strategy that works surprisingly
well: ask sincere questions and then carefully listen to the answers
without judgment. Youll be amazed at how much you learn about
people when you really listen to what they say. And the questions you
ask will tell you a lot about yourself too...
Colgate is in the middle of everywhere. Every day, Colgate offers some
sort of new stimulation that can help you explore your boundaries:
events at the ALANA Cultural Center, provocative lectures, art
exhibits, diverse music and dance performances, avant-garde film and
theater, activities at the COVE, the list goes on. Going to these events
is a wonderful opportunity to meet people who are also wanting to
develop and expand their views in new and interesting ways.

Get to Know Your Professors

Professor Johnson
Its always interesting to run into one of my Freshman Seminar
students in the grocery store, coffee shop or village green in early
5

September. The responses from students can range anywhere from

pretending not to see me to awkward confusion to shock that I
actually exist outside of Colgate. To some extent, this is
understandable: few high school students have ever really gotten to
know their teachers outside of the classroom, and fewer still, outside
of school altogether.
Colgate is a small town. Because of the size and location of Colgate,
you will have many opportunities to see your professors outside of
class. This is unique to a liberal arts school like Colgatethere arent
many like it in the whole worldso you should embrace this
opportunity and get to know your professors so they can get to know
you. Go to their office hours, have dinner at their houses, talk to them
about their research, babysit their children, take them out for a
coffee, you name itjust get to know them.
Getting to know faculty will enrich your education in many ways:
1. A friendly face. It will make it easier to go to them for help;
academic and otherwise.
2. A method in their madness. You will better understand and
respect how they are trying to educate you.
3. Personalized advice. They will get to know you, and this will
help them guide you better.
4. Home away from home. It will allow you to connect to the school
in a different way and make you feel more at home here.
Of course, this advice extends to all adults that you will meet at
Colgatedeans, chaplains, coaches, everyone. The meaningful
relationships you build here will stay with you and us long after
you graduate.

Time: the Most Precious Resource in College

Professor Hirata
The way you spend your time in college is largely in your hands. So
whats your plan? Video-game marathons, watching TV, late-night
philosophizing with friends? What about practice, parties, naps after
lunch, naps before lunch, going to class, working out, texting, joining
a club... And of course studying. There is just so much to do.
Setting priorities is a top priority. One of the greatest challenges of
college is to figure out how to prioritize your time. This is tricky
because time is a finite resource: spending time on one thing will take
it away from another.

Im not here to say what you should prioritize, because you need to
own that decision for yourself. But you should know that whatever you
choose, the academic demands placed on you at Colgate will be great,
and if you want to get the most out of your classes, studying must be
one of those priorities.
Do not cram. Many of you are going to have to study more than you
did in high school. For example, 2-3 hours per class period is a good
guideline). The key is to use that time efficiently and effectively. Here
is one simple piece of advice about how to maximize your time when
you study: do not cram.
The science of studying. Scientific research has proven that cramming
is one of the worst ways to learn and remember. In its place, research
suggests that you spread out your studying over time, and do it in
many smaller chunks. This approach allows you to test yourself AS
you study, and that helps you learn more and keep it in your brain
longer. Not only that, you will spend less total time studying:
experiments in psychology show that storing something in memory
only gets easier with repeated and extended self-testing. Be careful -not all syllabi will force you to do this, so take initiative especially
when you dont see any assignment due for a few weeks.
One more thing, as busy as you are, know that everyone at Colgate
professors, coaches, staff, everyoneis busy too. Colgate is a
community of driven and highly productive people, so its important
that we all respect one anothers time and use it wisely.

Be a Class Act
Professor Johnson
Woody Allen is credited with saying that, 80% of life is just showing
up. Unfortunately, when it comes to classes in college, this number is
just not going to cut it.
There is no question that you must show up to class if you want to get
the most out of your education. This may be the only time in your life
when you get to learn about such a wide range of interesting new
things directly from actual experts on those things. Colgate professors
are passionate about what they teach, and they know how to bring it
to life in their classes better than any book, article or online video.
Memorizing is not nearly enough. Just showing up for class is only the
beginning. To get the most out of it, you need to be activelynot
passivelypresent. You cant just sit there like a digital recorder,

simply taking notes so you can memorize the important stuff later.
Instead, you must explicitly engage with the material: you should be
connecting ideas, generating questions, agreeing, disagreeing,
becoming excited, becoming outraged, anything, as long as it is
active Passively memorizing can even hurt you after a class has
ended; because it limits how deeply you will connect to the material, it
can come back to bite you when you take future classes that build on
what you learned.
Multitasking invites distraction. Here is one piece of advice to help
you in advance: when you are in class, turn off distracting electrical
devices. Multi-tasking is one sure way to remove yourself from the
material and present moment. In fact, recent research has shown that
multitasking with technology (texting, Facebooking, online shopping)
is bad for your learning. You all probably already knew that, but you
may not know that it is bad for others too. In one 2012 study, students
who multitasked during a lecture (not surprisingly) did much worse
than non-multitaskers on an exam following the lecture. But the most
interesting finding was that other students who were distracted by the
multitaskersjust by sitting near themdid worse as well! It is one
thing to hurt yourself in class, but it is another to affect innocent
bystanders.

Work on Your Writing

Professor Kelly
The 21st century is an age of texting and tweetingwe write now
more than everd but college and the professional world will ask
much more of you than just 140 characters. College writing demands
sustained engagement and attention, and it requires both complexity
and clarity.
You can always improve. Fortunately for you, one of the best benefits
of attending a top liberal arts college is a chance to really work on
your writing. And work it will take. Even if your writing was praised in
high school, the only successful formula for becoming a truly good
writer is to first recognize that it can always improve, and then:
practice, practice, practice.
Here are a few benefits of writing well:
1. Being clear to others. You will make yourself better understood
to others.
2. Being clear to yourself. You will make yourself better
understood to yourself. Your own writing can tell you when you

3.
4.
5.

really understand or really don't understand something. If

your writing is clear, your thoughts probably are too.
Open up. It will open you up. The very act of writing can reveal
hidden ideas, and even create new ones.
Write well, read well. Better writing leads to better reading,
and that leads to better writing.
You will stand out. Because writing well requires special
dedication, this commitment will set you apart from the pack.

Seek opportunities to write. So my advice is to take as many classes

as possible that require you to writethis is especially important for
you science majors. And if the class has one large paper at the end, be
sure to write multiple draftsstarting with a basic outline of your
ideasso that you can get feedback from your professor. Dont be
defensive about this feedback. Your professors have all worked hard
to become better writersmost of us still doand practice and
feedback were necessary for them as well.
Emails are more important than you think. One last piece of advice:
emailing professors and administrators is an excellent opportunity to
practice your writing. The quality of even a two-sentence email
reveals a lot about the person who sent it.

About Motivation
Professor Hirata

Consider the following simple experiment: all incoming students were

given a book to read over the summer. Suppose that half of you were
offered $50 for reading the first three chapters, and the other half
were offered nothing. Which group do you think would read more of
the book: the first group or the second? Go ahead, say your answer
out loud.
Which group did you pick? If you said the first group, youre in good
company. But scientific research suggests that you are also wrong.
This sort of experiment has been done many times, and contrary to
what most people think, the results suggest that not paying people
may actually make them more likely to read the whole book. Not only
that, the studies suggest that they would enjoy it more too!
External rewards can curb your enthusiasm. This counter-intuitive
phenomenon is called the overjustification effect. The idea is this:
when people are externally rewarded for doing something (such as
being paid to read the book), they attribute the reason why they
performed that behavior to an external reward (such as the money),
9

and not to [pause] internal motivations (such as actually liking the

book). In contrast, when people are not externally rewarded, they are
free to attribute the reason why they did something to internal
motivations. In other words, an external reward can give too much
justification for a behavior and deprive you of a chance to reflect on
possible internal reasons.
Some of what youve done in school so far has been based on external
rewards. Many of you studied hard to get good grades, and did the
right activities to build up your college applications. Although external
incentives are useful for many things, the overjustification effect
suggests that focusing too much on them can curb your motivation,
and make your achievements... less satisfying.
Let intrinsic motivations be your guide. So here is some advice: try to
do things in college for intrinsic more than extrinsic reasons. Take
classes, join clubs, make friends not for the benefit you think youll
get from the outside, but for the satisfaction they bring on the inside.
After all, if you do things for internal rewards, the external ones often
come for free.

Sleep

Professor Kelly
There will be so much happening in your first year of college that you
may neglect one very important - but often under-appreciated - thing:
sleep. In the rush of the semester, sleep is often viewed as an
unnecessary luxury, and this is especially true during the most
stressful and difficult times, which is particularly bad because thats
when people need sleep the most!
Although some aspects of sleep are still very much a mystery, science
has made great progress in understanding the value of sleep. Here
are three scientific facts you should remember about this allimportant behavior:
1.
Survival of the alertest. Sleep is evolutionarily conserved in all
animals, which means that it serves a key survival function. In
fact, if any animal (including you) is deprived of sleep for long
enough, it will die. In this way, sleep is just as important to your
health as food and water.
2.
Sleep cleans your brain. Recent research shows that sleep
cleans the body every night by temporarily shrinking cells in the
brain, creating a wider space between those cells to more easily
flush out neurotoxins from the body. Eliminating these toxins is
not only good for everyday physical restoration, but also for
fighting stress and battling illness.
10

3.

Strengthening memories and creating insights. One of the five

stages of sleep affects memory. A classic study in the 1920s
showed that people remember facts and details much better
AFTER sleep versus the same amount of time awake. This stage
of sleep also helps your brain make new and creative
connections among your memories. If you have ever been stuck
trying to solve a problem at night, only to find an answer the
next morning, you may have this important stage of sleep to
thank!

The importance of good sleep habits. It is crucial to find a good sleep

schedule for yourself. Things like all-nighters put you into some tricky
situations. For example, many courses require attendance, so you
have a decision to make: you can stay in bed and receive a penalty;
you can sleep in class and embarrass yourself and distract others; or
you can budget your time more wisely so you can attend class and be
well rested. The choice is yours.

Not the Same Old Lecture On Plagiarism

Professor Hirata

Many of you have heard the lecture about the evils of plagiarism. As
you know, plagiarism is taking someones words or ideas, and
presenting them as your own. You know that if you copy a sentence
from a book and do not quote the source in an essay, thats plagiarism.
Or if you present someone elses argument as your own rather than
citing the true source, you know thats plagiarism too.
Instead of preaching to you about how plagiarism is stealing and why
thats wrong (youve heard all that before) I want you to think about
plagiarism in a new way. And I want to do this because I know that
all of you are wondering what college is like and how its different
from high school. Plagiarism offers one big clue.
Has memorization gotten you by so far? Up until now, a significant
portion of your education has required just remembering what a
teacher told you or what a book said, and then spitting it back on an
exam or in a paper. This habit can create the misperception that
learning is simply about remembering things and accurately reporting
them back. By that account of learning, you could actually see
plagiarism as not such a bad thing: after all, one easy way to show
that you remember something is to repeat back someones exact
words or ideas!

11

Creating something new from something old. College is different.

Here, you are asked to go much further than just remembering and
understanding things you must contribute to those things. And the
way to do that is to show where you acquired some existing
knowledge (e.g., by identifying sources), and then to use that
knowledge in developing your own, original ideas. Indeed, the only
way to know if you have created an original idea is to show how it
builds on old ones. Creating something new from something old is at
the core of a liberal arts education. When its viewed in this way,
plagiarism is the enemy of creativity, and engaging in it prevents you
from developing a truly authentic way to interact with the world.

Drinking in College
Professor Kelly

I want to talk about drinking in college. Dont worry I am not going

to lecture you on how underage drinking is illegal (you know that) or
how everyone must abstain from it altogether (thats not going to
happen). I know that that many of you have already experimented
with alcohol as a drug some more than others so I wanted to offer
some advice on what sorts of further experiments will likely produce
good results in college, and what will most likely produce bad results.
For example, finding a healthy limit for yourself? Thats a good
experiment. But regularly exceeding that limit? I have seen that one
end badly.
Work hard, play smart. You might be wondering why a professor
would even care about how much you drink. Well, the answer goes
back to the dangers of compartmentalizing yourself. Colgates liberal
arts mission is to educate the whole you, and that goes beyond what
happens in the classroom. Your education is not just about learning
different subject matters more generally, it is about developing
healthy habits of mind, such as thinking critically and making careful
decisions. A blackout and all the physical, legal and social risks that
go with it is the antithesis of those things, and it pains us as
educators to see a student who thinks so clearly and makes such good
decisions in the classroom do the exact opposite outside of it.
It is a personal choice, so take control. Trust me, I know that drinking
in college can be a lot of fun. All that I ask is that if you choose to
drink, make the decision the way you make other big decisions. Think
critically, and carefully decide how much you can handle, and then
stick to that plan. This is a personal choice, independent of what
others are doing: after all, you are the one who has to deal with the
consequences. Lastly, if you or someone you know are regularly going
12

too far with alcohol, please get some help before something really bad
happens. The Gate Way is all about taking good care of yourself and
looking out for others. Drinking is no exception.

Find Your Voice and Use It

Professor Johnson

College offers the most freedom most people ever have. You will be
living away from home, on your own, and will be in charge of how you
spend your time. Do not take this freedom for granted. In addition to
being a generous benefit of being at college this newfound freedom
is central to your liberal arts education at Colgate.
Freedom means more choices, more responsibility. Freedom requires
you to make many choices, and because you will be held accountable
for those choices, you will need to learn how to make good ones. The
first step in making the right choices for you is to learn more about
yourself. What do you value? Whom do you respect? How do you want
to live your life? When you start addressing these questions head on,
decisions become easier, and the way forward becomes clearer.
You can think of this process as finding your voice. Here are three
good places to exercise that voice:
1.
In class. In college, participating in class does not mean
regurgitating what you read, or saying what you think people
want to hear. If you have carefully reflected on the material
before you have come to class, it is a chance share what you
really think about what is being discussed. Clearly and honestly
speaking your mind in class is a great way to explore different
parts of yourself in a safe environment, and it will help you
understand what you are learning in a much more personal and
meaningful way.
2.
Outside of class. When you are with people outside of class, and
you encounter something that goes against what you believe,
you should speak up. Standing UP for a belief is the best way to
affirm it. Such a public proclamation has the added benefit of
helping you to find friends who are right for you.
3.
With family. Technology is allowing college students to stay
connected with their family more than ever. Take this as an
opportunity to demonstrate that you are making the most of
your independence. As with professors, classmates and friends,
dont be afraid to speak your mind with your family. That will
help them, and you, better understand the person you are
becoming.

13

14