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Bridges: WHY “BRIDGES”?

Bridges
WHY “BRIDGES”?
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table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Table of Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Who Is This Book For?
  8. Why “Bridges”?
  9. For Students: Some Important Definitions
  10. For Instructors: Some Important Considerations
  11. Getting In
    1. 1. Accreditation and Types of Institutions
    2. 2. International United States College Campuses
    3. 3. Study Abroad in the United States
    4. 4. College Fairs
    5. 5. Outreach Services
    6. 6. Community Serving Colleges and Universities
      1. American Indian Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities
      2. Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions
      3. First-Generation Forward Institutions
      4. Hispanic-Serving Institutions
      5. Historically Black Colleges and Universities
      6. Online Institutions
      7. Veteran-Serving Institutions
      8. Women’s Colleges and Universities
    7. 7. College Rankings
    8. 8. Campus Visits
    9. 9. College Websites and Other Internet Resources
    10. 10. Applications
      1. Undergraduate School
      2. Graduate School
  12. Getting Through
    1. 11. Common Challenges
      1. General Problem Solving
      2. Money
      3. Warning About Predatory Loans
      4. Getting Involved
      5. Time Management
      6. Dormmates/Roommates
      7. So Many Questions–Whom to Ask?
      8. Goal Setting
    2. 12. Academic Advising
    3. 13. Credentials, Majors, and Requirements
    4. 14. Instructors and Professors
      1. Job Titles and Pronouns
      2. Office Hours
      3. Letters of Recommendation
    5. 15. Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity
    6. 16. Rights and Responsibilities
    7. 17. More Quotes From the Field
  13. Appendix
    1. 18. Twenty Academic Jargon Words You Might Need to Know
    2. 19. Grammar for Composition Resources and Review
      1. Components of a Sentence
      2. Subjects
      3. Prepositional Phrases
      4. Verbs
      5. Sentence Structure
      6. Collective Nouns
      7. Sentence Combining: Conjunctive Adverbs
      8. Sentence Combining: Subordination
      9. Sentence Combining: Run-on Sentences
      10. Parallelism
      11. Good Paragraphs
      12. Topic Sentences
      13. Supporting Sentences
      14. Concluding Sentences
      15. Transitions
      16. Academic Paragraphs
      17. Thesis Statements
      18. Audience
      19. Introduction Paragraphs
      20. Body Paragraphs
      21. Conclusion Paragraphs
    3. 20. Academic Situations and Scripts
      1. In Emails
      2. In the Classroom
      3. In Office Hours
    4. 21. Pop Culture Index
      1. Best African American Films
      2. Best Asian American Films
      3. Best International Feature Film Winners
      4. Best Hispanic and Latinx American Films
      5. The EGOT List
      6. The Literary List
      7. The Kennedy Center Honor List
      8. The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
  14. About the Author

WHY “BRIDGES”?

If you downloaded this book because you thought it was about architecture, structural engineering, or urban planning, I’m sorry. It’s not. At least it was free, right?

This book talks about bridges as metaphors, or as clear ways to understand abstract concepts.

Imagine you’re on one side of a river and you want to get across to the other side. No, you need to get across to the other side. You have a few options: you can try to walk through it if your feet touch the ground. You can try to swim across it. You can walk along the side of the river looking for a bridge to cross. Finally, if there’s no bridge to cross, you can try to tether something to the other side of the river and build your own bridge to pull yourself across or to walk across.

Before you needed to get across that river, maybe you didn’t care much about bridges. Bridges are just ways to get from one place to another—from San Francisco to Oakland, from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The bridge doesn’t matter; it’s the destination that you care about, right?

Well, this book focuses on bridges because they are important. Metaphorically, to get from high school to college, you need a bridge. If you’re an international student, to move from your country’s customs to those of the United States, you need a bridge. You need a bridge between the academic and the social aspects of college life. And if you can’t find a bridge, you’ll have to build one yourself.

Bridge-building is hard, whether it’s literal or metaphorical bridges. The good news is that you don’t have to build every metaphorical bridge yourself. In fact, many bridges are already in place and were built by experts. However, you will need to know where they are. Otherwise, if you can’t find them, you will struggle unnecessarily all the way to your destination. You will have to build some. However, unlike a game where you have unlimited chances to try again, you only get limited shots at some metaphorical bridge-building. Therefore, instead of leaving you to try things on your own (like I had to, many times), I decided to write this book to show you where those bridges might be and how to build one if needed.

Throughout this book, I will try to refer to this metaphor. I hope it makes sense. If it doesn’t (or if you just don’t like it), just remember: being successful in college is about making connections, seeing relationships, solving problems, engaging actively, and figuring out how to get from “here” to “there.” Find bridges where they already are; figure out how to make them when you need them.

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FOR STUDENTS: SOME IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS
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