eSource for College Transitions, Vol. 18 No. 2 April 2021
Finding Your Pathway Course: Providing an Organized Process for Forming Goals Dr. Greg M. Ahrenhoerster, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Sue Kalinka, Director of Student Development University of Wisconsin Milwaukee College of General Studies Bailey (2017) observed: “Most colleges do not provide an organized process to help students form long-term goals and design an academic program to achieve those goals. Rather, students must recognize when they need help and seek it out on their own” (p. 36). This is an accurate description of our institution, the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) College of General Studies, which is an open-access, two-year liberal arts institution of around 2000 students (more than 50% first-generation and 25-30% Pelleligible). Most students enter college undecided about their major. Resources were available to help students develop academic and career goals in the form of academic advisors and a career counselor, but students had to seek them out, and many did not. We concluded that we could address this problem by designing a class in which students researched various academic and career goals and developed a plan for achieving those goals, which we did in Fall 2017. After teaching this course for multiple semesters and gathering extensive data on the 2018-2019 cohort, we are convinced this class achieves the goal of effectively providing students with an organized process for forming academic and career goals and is positively correlated with student retention and academic success.
Course Design We designed the course, Finding Your Pathway (LEC 105) together, drawing on our experiences as a writing professor and Director of Student Development, in consultation with the Academic Advising team and career counselor. We incorporated sessions with advising and career staff into the course so students are required to interact with them. The result was a course designed to help students meet the following learning objectives: 1. develop the skills to create an academic, career, and financial pathway, and learn the process for future revisions to that pathway; 2. create a vision for one’s future, based on internal and external characteristics; 3. identify personal core values and desired work values, along with personal strengths, abilities, talents, gifts, and interests; 4. become an engaged and self-reflective learner who takes responsibility for their goals and learning process; 5. use appropriate campus resources for academic success and personal development; 6. communicate effectively (e.g., fluent use of thesis, argumentation, support, source materials, and organization); and 7. demonstrate critical thinking, information literacy, and technological skills.
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After team-teaching a pilot section of the class in Spring 2018, we revised the course and offered five sections in Fall 2018. A general call was sent out to find people interested in teaching the course. Instructors from the fields of psychology, philosophy, and english expressed interest. We provided the new instructors with a halfday training session and access to a Canvas site containing course resources. Students were recruited into this three-credit elective course by advisors, both during New Student Orientation and during one-on-one advising sessions. The class is divided into three units, culminating in a final project. Unit 1 is largely focused on learning objectives 3 and 4 but lays the groundwork for the other objectives. Students read about student success, the psychology of choice, happiness, and the value of the liberal arts. In addition, students work through exercises requiring reflection on their interests, skills, and values. One reflective activity is a paper entitled The Student I Am and the Student I’d Like to Become. The paper discusses how they could use student success strategies more effectively. Units 2 and 3 more directly focus on learning objectives 1, 2, and 5 (objectives 6 and 7 are worked on throughout the class). Unit 2 requires students to research two potential careers, using multiple career exploration resources (e.g., My Plan, Career One Stop, O*Net Online, and Occupational Outlook Handbook) and to conduct two informational interviews. The career counselor leads two class sessions and encourages students to make individual appointments to receive personalized support. This unit culminates in a paper summarizing their research and reflecting on how well the careers match their skills, values, and interests. Unit 3 requires students to research at least two distinct academic goals they are considering, including colleges they could transfer to and degrees they might pursue. Academic advisors lead class sessions on finding information about other schools and how to transfer. We also cover financial literacy and paying for college. The students write a paper summarizing their research and mapping out the courses they would take each semester if they pursued a particular goal. At the end of the semester, students present the career and academic pathway they are currently planning to pursue and offer a significant reflection about how their goals fit what they have learned about themselves in both an oral presentation and a paper. They must reflect on the challenges they might encounter and discuss their plan for addressing those challenges.
Research Findings As a way to assess learning objectives 1, 2, 3, and 4, information was gathered about the effects that completing the course had on students enrolled in Fall 2018 or Spring 2019, through student surveys and textual analysis of final projects.
