Leaving my Brother Behind

Abstract

Jason Walker, a new freshman at Southern State University, was worried about his kid brother. Things had not been good at home when Jason left for college. He and his brother were living with their father and his new wife after the custody battle that occurred when their parents divorced several years earlier. It was not a comfortable setting. The brothers had supported each other through their family's difficulties and now that Jason was away at college he wondered how he could continue to support his brother without making things worse for him. The first great concern of traditional-aged college freshmen is arguably their personal relationships. Negotiating adjustments in their relationships with parents, brothers and sisters, high school friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, new college friends and roommates consumes much of their lives in the first few days of college. If they fail in working out their relationships, then they begin looking for and seeing the negative in their college experiences. If they are successful with their relationships, then a sense of security and confidence develops and they being to realize that they can make it in college. This case is based on field research and was developed to initiate dialogue among freshmen during that critical period when they are adjusting to the many changes that occur in their relationships. The names and some peripheral facts have been disguised to protect confidentiality. However, care was taken to ensure that nothing essential to the meaning of the case was "made up" and that the case would ring true to freshmen in similar situations.

This case is best used with new college freshmen in a college success class or freshman seminar course during the first few weeks of class. This is when the dilemma contained in the case is most keenly felt. The advantage of using a case such as this is that it bypasses the awkwardness many freshmen fell talking about their own personal issues in class. Instead, they can work through the case and, in the process, can practice and sharpen the skills needed to solve their own issues as they move on to a hoped for successful college experience.