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After combing through the possibilities that the first year is a con job or a dystopia or a tragedy, all to no avail. However, standing at a football game with my daughter and nephew, I realize what this story actually is: the root of my problems- I love this place, and its broken my heart.

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And, what if this slide looks like another chapter of the enshittification that is ensnaring so many other parts of our market economy?

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Oh, no! What if the first-year is a dystopia?! How could this be so? Here, I examine the Huxleyean and Orwellian landscape of the first year, culminating in a meditation on the destruction of language in first-year student success. To be a successful professional in this day and age, do we have to hold competing truths in our heads at the same time? Must we engage in doublethink?

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We now move beyond the elephant in the room, the cost of things, and meet our fellow travellers. Two students: Carmen and Niko; Two professionals: Ana and Mirna. I discovered that while "the honeymoon" may describe the student experience, it does not describe that of the faculty and staff. Additionally, I start to think through the question of genre- as in, what genre is this story to be told in? I determine that, if nothing else, this is not a muckraker piece. No one is in charge!

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Here we explore the cost of college and why so many students and families are caught off guard by the high cost of the first-year.

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Working in the first year at a public institution in a state that has largely withdrawn public funding for higher education means supporting retention (in other words, helping students return for a second year). At schools like mine, which truly serve a diverse group of students, approximately one in four students will leave the institution without returning for a second year.

So, I begin my quest while exploring the ins and outs of retention and how working in a job built around retention has made me feel like a loser!

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You might remember me mentioning Taylor, the student who joined the research group only to vanish. Well, as Nicole Bowers would say, attrition is also data. So, to make lemons out of lemonade, Taylor's vanishing gave me an opportunity to explore the case of the missing student.

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