Multisphere

Abstract

Chapter 5 focuses on Multisphere students who incorporated elements from both Work Hard and Play Hard geographies, balancing serious academic work, strong extracurricular involvement, and social lives in high-status venues. Most Multisphere students arrived on campus through targeted orientation programs. While these led to early and lasting friendships, Multisphere respondents’ campus acclimation processes are distinguished by a pattern of branching out, locating strong peer ties in varied social locations. The way that students in this geography float among different spheres, able to be comfortable and successful in each, makes this the most fluid of the campus geographies. There are few first-generation students in this geography, and the authors think of them in some ways as being both outliers and examples of what is possible for first-generation students.