Implementation

One of the biggest changes in community college practice that we’re seeing is that all of these colleges in the AACC pathways are moving to a system where after the first term every student has a full program plan. And that’s so profound because right now the whole front end in general for community colleges is, “Let’s just register you for the first day of class, the first term of classes. And then, you know, maybe you’ll go to the advising center and figure out something.” It’s really unfair to students, especially low-income students, but students generally. There’s no discussion about how long this is going to take. Students are told that 12 credits is full time so they take 12 credits. They weren’t told that there’s no way you can finish the two-year program advertised in our catalog in the four terms — in four semesters if you take 12 credits. This way, every student has a plan. So you’re a go-getter, you’re right out of high school and, you know, you don’t have a lot to do, so your plan is to finish in two years. I’m a single parent; I have, you know, shift work I have to do. My plan is four years. But I can also over time work with my advisors to take a summer course, take an intersession course so that maybe I can bring that down to three and a half years. But at least I know what courses, you know, what I’m going to have to do.

In the guided pathways work, one of the key components in trying to help students find that pathway is to try to get them to complete and complete sooner and on time. As you think about those data points, I think it’s so important for us to realize helping them complete faster and on time is so critical because they really are living so close to the edge financially. So many of our students, we know how many are on Pell, we know how many of them are seeking assistance in other ways to try to help navigate college, but when so many of them are gonna run out of money — almost 50 percent are gonna run out of money at least once in a 12-month time, and then one in five have nowhere to go to be able to get any kind of emergency funds — we need to get them out of our institution so they can go out there and earn that livable wage and support themselves and their families.

Here at Jackson College, we have a Pathways Showcase Day. That occurs every semester. So the students would come to the Business and Technology Showcase, for example. We start out in a large group, and just give students a little more information about the different program areas. For example, a student might say, “I want to do something with computers.” They don’t really know whether it’s networking or programming, or cybersecurity, or graphic design. We start out in a large group and just give them kind of an overview of what those different program areas are, the kinds of jobs that they might be able to get in those program areas, what the job outlook looks like and salary. Then we break into small groups, and students have a chance to be able to maybe experience hands on. — I teach programming, so if they come to the programming small group, we actually write code that day, so they get an idea of what a programmer sort of really does. We could — it’s an opportunity for us to answer specific questions that they might have about that career.

Since I’m a general-studies transfer student, I’m kind of taking different types of classes that I think I’m interested in. So I took an early childhood course, and we went to a person who actually had an at-home daycare. And we were able to look at what she did in action. They definitely offer a lot of opportunities, depending on the program, that you can see it in action to see if that’s something you’re interested in.

At this university, they actually have programs where you can go in, and let’s say you thought you were really good at math and science. It’ll actually ask you personal questions about yourself on the program. So even for a new, incoming student that says, “I don’t know where to go,” they’ll actually show you almost like a Gantt chart of where your strengths are personally. Let’s say you thought you loved math and science. It turns out you actually liked nurturing and learning more, and you wanna be more — it might change you from a business science degree to a medical science degree, so rather than going for a business tech, you now go for a medical tech. So it can actually take you from where you think you wanna go and actually look at you as a person and change you over to a career where your personal mindset and goals will actually be satisfied, rather than picking a career where you think you like it, in 10 years, finding out this is not what I actually wanted.

Working with the academic coach and an advisor, and then also with the student service support center, just goin’ in. What I liked about that was — they have you to write down different questions, and then you hafta answer them yourself to see where you want to go, and then just writing down your short-terms and your long-term goals. What are you capable of doin’? What are you capable of achievin’? Where do you see yourself in two or three years? How can you get to that two to three years, achieving like a certificate, associate’s degree, and stuff like that? And so just havin’ that connection with them and learnin’ about myself, it helped me to learn what I wanted to be. Then also, I like helpin’ people, so, with my program, it’s called Criminal Justice — Criminal Law. Let me get it right — Criminal Justice Law Enforcement Professional Studies Program. Within that program, you can receive an associate’s degree, and then also, you can be certified in different emergency dispatch and other programs within that. So that’s what I like about my program.