What have we learned
through the Community College Survey
of Student Engagement?
“It
comes as a surprise to a lot of community college people that students
consistently report that the service of most importance to them is academic
planning and advising. When we have followed up, conducting focus groups with
students, we have asked them to talk about why they place this level of
importance on advising and academic planning. Typically, the first thing they say is that it’s not about someone just
helping them to fill out their class schedule. Rather, it’s about creating a
plan defining a pathway, with milestones along the way, that shows
them the route from where they are to a different place they want to be.
Students have further explained that that plan and those milestones essentially
then compete with all of the other issues and obligations in their
often-complicated lives, giving them reasons to return to class the next week
and the next semester.” Kay McClenney
Fact: “
Another Fact: “faculty advisors do not have the time to
meet all the learner needs for life/ career/educational planning.”
Fact: Academic Success Courses are ideally situated to
partner with career planning in a career pathway learning community.
Fact: Under the NEXUS Career and Educational Planning
Pathways, referral to and instruction in life/career/ educational providers and
services by faculty, staff, and advisors become as important as the advising
knowledge and skills faculty possess.
Cuseo – Why do students
leave?
4.
UNCERTAINTY ABOUT EDUCATIONAL OR OCCUPATIONAL GOALS
Attrition related to prolonged indecisiveness about, and protracted delay in
making a commitment to, an academic major or career path
Remedies:
* Developmental academic advising
* Integration of academic advising & career counseling services
* Intrusive promotion of students’ long-range planning
NEXUS- GE 101 Partnership with CREW Center through SuccessNow Learing Communities
Career and Educational Planning Pathway
Strategies for Academic Success (GE 101) is designed to take the confusion out of:
·
exploring
careers,
·
selecting
academic programs
·
selecting
courses and,
·
navigating the
registration process and the educational processes.
·
extended
orientation
·
study
strategies for success in college
What is Developmental
Advising?
“Developmental academic advising is . . . a systematic process based on a close student-advisor relationship intended to aid students in achieving “educational, career, and personal goals” through the utilization of the full range of institutional and community resources.
Developmental advising is a system founded on shared responsibilities and mutual trust. It is the goal of developmental advising that the student become increasingly more self-sufficient in their ability to implement career and educational goals
While students enter college with "course selection" questions that require immediate attention from advisors, developmental advising advocates moving students towards career and life planning through a process of growth that becomes increasingly more self-directed.
Developmental advising promotes selecting sound goals through increased knowledge of self (aptitudes, interests, values), careers (realistic information), and curriculum (appropriate academic preparation). http://www.casa.colostate.edu/advising/Faculty_Advising_Manual/Chapter1/definition.cfm
“Retention research tells us that students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that take advising seriously; that provide clear, consistent, and easily accessible information about institutional requirements, that help students understand the roadmap to completion, and help them understand how they use that roadmap to decide upon and achieve personal goals.” Vincent Tinto
Astin states that “Research indicates that prolonged indecision about an academic major and career goals is correlated with student attrition.”
Levitz and Noel found lack of certainty about a major and/or career to be the number-one reason cited by high-ability students for their decision to drop out of college.
Joe Cuseo’s review of the literature shows that “Effective advising can exert appreciable impact on student retention through its salutary influence on students educational and career planning and decision-making.”
Tinto again,
“Advisors who facilitate assimilation to college understand factors affecting freshmen's fit and persistence. They share responsibility for advising with students and begin educational and career planning. Perceptive advisors encourage all students in transition to focus first on exploring life, career, and educational goals. Then students in transition seem better equipped to select educational programs, choose courses, and schedule classes.”
Astin, Terenzini, Pascarella and Lorang and Tinto’s research
indicates that frequent and meaningful contact with faculty members, especially
contact focusing on intellectual or career-related issues, seems to increase
students' involvement and motivation.
At
Students will “persist longer and meet with greater success” if they can establish both (connection) and (b) (direction) at the college as early as possible.
(Connection): From first contact with
(Direction): “Research findings tell us that students who have a plan are much more likely to complete their education than those who do not. The retention literature indicates that early development and recurring refinement of long-range goals bring purpose, meaning and persistence to students’ educational pursuits.”
What is Valencia
Community College doing about career planning?
LifeMap
LifeMap is
LifeMap recognizes that students typically
enter college with vague notions of their goals and minimal understanding of
how to negotiate a college environment. With the ultimate goal of student
self-sufficiency, LifeMap interventions are designed
to provide more support to students in the beginning of their college
experience and then to intentionally move them toward becoming more
self-directed.
LifeMap is predominately about student
goal-setting and planning. It includes creating a norm in our college culture
that a student should have life, career and educational goals, establishing a
system to establish and document those goals,
facilitating a process of planning and
implementing goals, developing assessment processes to re-evaluate goals and
documenting the achievement of goals. We assume that, naïve though those goals
may be when they first enroll students ultimately choose
to pursue their education based on some purpose. Thus, very early on in student
interactions with the college, we seek to channel this positive (albeit
diffuse) goal directed energy into a supported process of exploration,
evaluation, and formal goal setting. We challenge students to explicitly
reconsider their goals in the context of access to more complete information
and support from faculty, academic advisors, and career advisors.
LifeMap describes for students “what they
should do when” to achieve their career and educational goals at
literature on best practices in higher education
and specifies a time frame in terms of academic progression.
The five stages are:
Postsecondary Transition (Middle school to College Decision)
Introduction to College (0-15 credit hours)
Progression to Degree (16-44 credit hours)
Graduation Transition (45-60 credit hours)
Life Long Learning (New career or career improvement)
The details on each stage can be found at http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/stages
Once the model was developed, it became clear that a significant change
in student success would not occur until the LifeMap
model was implemented through a system that supported it. The implementation
process has included:
Gap Analysis – With the LifeMap model as
the ideal, we mapped the programs and services already in place to the LifeMap stages, re-focused interventions where needed, and
developed new interventions to support the ideal described in LifeMap. With LifeMap as the
foundation of the curriculum in student affairs, we have considered the
learning outcomes, instructional strategies and assessment methods for our
programs. This has included integrating LifeMap into
our new student orientation program, student success course, student services
workshops and individual advising sessions.
Faculty and Staff Development – Faculty and Deans have come to
understand LifeMap (a.k.a. developmental advising) as
a means to tap into student motivation through understanding student goals and
their connection to classroom learning
experiences. Specific faculty development programs
have provided opportunity to learn about and design instructional strategies
that integrate LifeMap. Indeed, this is one of the
specific competencies for new faculty that participate in the Teaching and
Collaboration between student affairs and academic affairs has
been a key to this work as we develop a continuous system that reinforces for
students the importance of goal setting and planning from their early
experiences at the college (Start Right) and continuing throughout their
enrollment.
Marketing –The brand name of “LifeMap”
with the tag line “Life’s a trip. You’ll need directions.” was developed to
explain developmental advising to students and motivate them to participate.
Large banners on campus, posters in the hallways,
collateral materials such as t-shirts, mouse
pads, and other printed items, the re-design of existing college publications
such as the student handbook, and the creation of new publications all
contribute to integrating LifeMap into the culture of
the college. The main “call to action” of the marketing campaigns has been to
have direction (have a plan) and to point students to campus resources who can
help them (connection).
Student Information
System – LifeMap required a web-based system that provided on-line
tools for students to develop and save career and educational plans, and to
communicate easily with faculty and staff. Over time, we developed various
applications that lead to our conceptualization of our on-line portal, named
Atlas, with the focus on connection and direction.
These strategies work together to create the optimal conditions
for learning by creating an expectation and mechanisms for student engagement
in the goal setting and planning process This is done by connecting with
students’ passions and interests in the goal setting process, and by providing
iterative processes whereby students can assess their progress and re-evaluate
their goals.
Let’s take a look at NACADA Institutional Goals; these goals are the heart and soul of an extended
orientation and advising program.
Personal Development I
Personal Development II
Educational Career Planning
Educational Plan
Institutional Information
Support Services
Evaluation and Reevaluation of Programs
Departments
Myths
(Misconceptions) About the Relationship Between Majors
& Careers
By Joe Cuseo in “Art of Being Human”
Good decisions are informed decisions that are based on accurate information, rather than misconceptions or myths. Since there is a relationship between majors and careers, to be able to plan effectively for a college major, you first need to have an accurate understanding of this relationship. Described below are some common myths about the relationship between majors and careers that can lead to uninformed or unrealistic choices of a college major.
* Myth #1. When you choose your major, you’re choosing your career.
While some majors lead directly to a particular career, most do not. Those majors that do lead directly to specific careers are often called “pre-professional majors,” which include such fields as accounting, engineering, and nursing. However, the vast majority of college majors do not channel you directly down one particular career path. Instead, they leave you with a variety of career options. The career path of most college graduates is not like walking a straight line or taking a single-track monorail ride directly from your major to your career. For instance, all physics majors do not become physicists, all philosophy majors do not become philosophers, all history majors do not become historians, and all English majors become not become Englishmen (or Englishwomen). The trip from your college experience to your eventual career(s) is more like climbing a tree. You could consider your college education in terms of a tree. You begin with the tree’s trunk—the foundation of liberal arts (general education), which grows into separate limbs—choices for college majors (academic specializations), which in turn, lead to different branches—different career paths or options.
Branches (careers) do grow from the same limb (major), so typically a particular major will lead to a group or “family” of related careers. For example, an English major will often lead to careers that involve use of the written language (e.g., editing, journalism, publishing), while a major in Art will often lead to careers that involve use of visual media (e.g., illustration, graphic design, art therapy).
Furthermore, different majors can lead to the same career. For instance, many different majors can lead a student to law school and to an eventual career as a lawyer. (There really is no law or pre-law major.) Similarly, there really is no “pre-med” major. Students interested in going to medical school after college typically major in some field in the natural sciences (e.g., biology or chemistry); however, it is possible for students to go to medical school with majors in other fields, particularly if they take and do well in certain science courses that are emphasized in medical school (e.g., General Biology, General Chemistry, Organic and Inorganic Chemistry). Just as the same major can lead to different careers, so too can different majors lead to the same career. Said in another way, you can reach the same destination (career) by taking different routes (majors), and you can take the same route (major) to reach different destinations (careers).
The key point we are making here is that the relationship between most majors and careers is not a one-to-one relationship. Your major does not equal your career (major ≠ career), nor does your major automatically turn into your career (major↛career). So, do not assume that choosing your college major means that you’re choosing what you will do for a living for the remainder of your working life. One reason why some students may procrastinate about choosing a major is because they think they are making a lifelong decision, and if they make the “wrong” one, they will be stuck doing something they hate for the rest of their lives. Research on college graduates indicates that they change careers numerous times, and the further they continue along their career path, the more likely they end-up working in a field that is unrelated to their college major. While, this may seem hard to believe, remember that the liberal arts curriculum is a significant part of your college education and the many different subjects it exposes you to, plus the key skills it helps you develop (e.g., writing, speaking, organizing), serve to quality you for a number of different careers—regardless of what your particular major happens to be. The key point to remember here is that deciding on a major and deciding on a career are typically different decisions that are made at different times. The order in which decisions about majors and careers are covered in this book reflects the order that they are made in life: First, you make a decision about your major, and later, you make a decision about your career. Although it is important to think about the relationship between your choice of major and your choice of career(s), these are not identical choices that are made simultaneously. Both choices do relate to your future goals, but they involve different timeframes: Choosing your major is a short-range goal, whereas choosing your career is a long-range goal.
Myth # 2. If you major in a liberal arts field (e.g., English, History, Philosophy), the only career available to you is teaching.
Research indicates that liberal arts majors enter and advance in careers other than teaching, and they do so just as well as majors in pre-professional fields, such as business and engineering (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). There are many college graduates with majors in liberal arts fields who have proceeded to, and succeeded at, careers other than teaching. Among these graduates are such notable people as:
Jill Barad (English major), CEO, Mattel Toys
Steve Case (Political Science major), CEO, America Online
Brian Lamb (Speech major), CEO, C-Span
Willie Brown (Liberal Studies major), Mayor, San Francisco
(Source:
So, if you are considering a major in a liberal arts field, you should not be dismayed or discouraged by those who may question your choice by asking: “What are you going to do with a degree in that major?”
Student Perspective
“They asked me during my interview why I was right for the job and I
told them because I can read well, write well
and I can think. They
really liked that because those were the skills
they were looking for.”
—English major hired by a
public relations firm (Source:
Times,
* Myth #3. Liberal arts (general
education) requirements are not relevant to your career
preparation or
career performance.
Studies show that college students, as well as their parents, are extremely concerned about the what majors lead to successful careers, but they often overlook or underestimate the importance of the liberal arts (general education) for career success (Hersh, 1994). They often believe that the “liberal arts” are something idealistic or impractical, which cannot be put to use in the “real world” and will not help you get a “real job” (Hersh, 1997). Actually, this is far from the truth. Just as the core skills developed by a liberal arts education prepare you for success in your major, they also prepare you for success in your eventual career. In fact, the skills developed by a liberal arts education are strikingly similar to the types of skills that employers desire and seek in new employees.
National surveys and in-depth interviews indicate that executives in both industry and government consistently report that they seek employees with skills that fall into the following top-three categories:
1. Communication Skills, which include listening, speaking, writing, and reading.
2. Thinking Skills, which include problem solving and critical thinking.
3. Lifelong Learning Skills, which include learning how to learn and how to continue
learning.
Classic Quote
“In
a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject
or set of subjects that will serve your for the
foreseeable
future, let alone for the rest of your life.
The most important
skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.”
—John Naisbitt, futurologist and author of Megatrends:
Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives.
If you compare these three sets of work skills sought by
employers with the key academic skills developed by a liberal arts education
(see unit 2), you will find that there is a remarkable resemblance between the
two. Although the resemblance is striking, it is not surprising if you stop and
think about the typical duties or responsibilities of working professionals.
They need to have good communication skills because (a) they spend
significant amounts of time listening, speaking, and explain things to
co-workers and customers; (b) they regularly read and review reports, and (c)
they frequently write letters, memos, and reports. They also need to have
well-developed thinking skills because they must analyze problems,
construct plans, devise strategies, and critically evaluate whether their plans
and strategies are effective.
In addition to this set of academic or intellectual skills, employers
also value the following set of personal qualities, which relate to
other elements of the self developed by a liberal arts education:
1. Interpersonal (Social) Qualities, such as: leadership, ability to collaborate, negotiate, work in teams, and relate to others with diverse characteristics and backgrounds (e.g., people of different age, race, gender, and cultural backgrounds).
2. Personal Attitudes and Behaviors, such as: self-motivation, initiative, effort, self-
management, independence, personal responsibility, enthusiasm, flexibility, good work habits, and self-esteem.
3. Personal Ethics, such as: honesty, integrity, and ethical standards of conduct.
These findings point to the following conclusion: Being a generalist is just as important for career success as being a specialist. You may find that liberal arts courses are sometimes viewed by students as unnecessary requirements, which they have to “get out of the way” before they can get into what is really important—their major or academic specialization. This negative view probably stems from lack of knowledge about what the “liberal arts” stand for, what they are designed to do, misinterpretation of “general” education to mean something that is “non-specific” and without any particular value or practical purpose. However, as we documented extensively in chapter 2, a liberal arts education does develop very practical, durable, and transferable skills that provide a strong foundation for success in any major or any career.
Also,
don’t forget that the general skills and qualities developed by the liberal
arts serve to increase career mobility—your ability to move into
different careers paths, and career advancement—your ability to move up
the career ladder. In fact, research indicates that as an individual’s
career progresses, specific skills learned in a major tend to decline in
importance and are replaced by more general skills (Pascarella
& Terenzini, 2005). While specific, technical skills may be important
for getting into a career, it is the general professional skills that are more
important for moving you up the career ladder. General skills are the ones that
prevent you from getting stuck at a “dead end” position and help you avoid the
“Peter Principle”—the tendency to rise to a position
that you cannot perform successfully because it requires broader professional
skills and responsibilities than those required for success at lower levels of
employment.
Furthermore, general professional skills
will grow even more important for college graduates who enter the workforce in
the twenty-first century, because the demand for upper-level positions that
involve management and leadership will exceed the supply of workers available
to fill these positions (Herman, 2000).
Making Decisions about a College Major
Reaching an
effective decision about a college major involves three key steps: (1)
awareness of your self—your personal abilities, interests, and values;
(2) awareness of your options—the academic fields that are available to
you as choices for a college major, and (3) awareness of what options best “fit”
you— that is, best “match” your personal abilities, interests, and values. When your goal is self-awareness for the
purpose of choosing a college major that best “fits” you, good questions are
those that increase self-awareness of your:
(1) interests—what you like doing,
(2) abilities—what you’re good at doing, and
(3) values—what you feel good about doing.
Classic
Quote
“In order to succeed, you must know what you are doing,
like what you are doing, and believe in what
you are doing.”
—Will
Rogers, American actor, humorist, & Cherokee Indian