What Makes this Start-up Strategy for Freshmen Unique?
Based on the Freshman Transition Standards from The George Washington University's Freshman Transition Initiative, this unique Student Success course promotes both high school and college completion by providing a classroom-based, in-depth guidance experience that culminates with students creating a personalized, online 10-year Career and Education Plan. This course supports Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy research showing that college students who enter a program of study in their first year are twice as likely to complete as students who enter a program after their first year.
In this course, students learn a systematic decision-making process for quantifying life-defining choices. They develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to successfully examine their own lives, evaluate a wide range of education options, foster a growth mindset, and establish reasoned and researched career and life goals for their future.
At the same time, they explore the consequences of not completing their education. When students can envision a productive life of their own design -- not a canned plan resulting from an online survey -- and, at the same time, understand the consequences of not following through with their education plans, the motivation to complete will increase. As they become self-motivated learners, dropping out will not be a choice they make.
Most freshman programs focus on the skills to be successful in school. Course time is generally spent honing students’ study skills and habits. Longitudinal studies show that these types of courses do not impact graduation rates.
This comprehensive guidance course offering is unique, presenting not only study skill strategies for today’s new learning environments, but also taking the learner beyond graduation with the plan and the necessary skills to be competitive in the workplace.
When every entering student has this comprehensive guidance course that culminates in an informed major and career path, their intrinsic motivation will soar and your retention/completion rates will increase. The 10-year planning process for all students can change the culture of your campus.
and the Online 10-Year Career and Education Plan that
Launches Freshmen into a Life of Self-sufficiency
I wish I would have had this course when I was growing up.