The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Alyssa Tyler editor in chief
Every week in the Prairie Room of the Overman Student Center, the Office of First Year Programs hosts workshops focusing on different and integral aspects of student success. The events cover ideas that can transfer from school to future careers.
On Jan. 30 the weekly workshop covered goal setting and planning. Jesse Briscoe, Assistant Director of First Year Programs gave examples of the different exercises they did during the event. Ranging from SMART Goals to SWOT Analysis.
“All of these resources, like the academic workshops really is to just help these students to see what resources are available to become better note takers, to learn how to read more effectively, to help manage their time better, to establish short-term, long-term goals, and actually strive towards those goals,” Briscoe said. “And it honestly creates opportunities for us to just build one-on-one connections with these students”
Briscoe said that students at Pitt State come from all walks of life and the Office of First Year Programs never wants to assume where these students are coming from.
“In our Student Success Center there, the words that we often hear are persistence and success,” Briscoe said. “Our students they’re all come from different walks of life. Some are coming from highly academically rigorous high school backgrounds, or maybe they’re homeschooled, maybe they went to a private school. You know, we can never assume where people are coming from. We’ve got students transferring in from community colleges or other four-year institutions. We never want to assume where people are coming from.”
The Office of First Year Services offers more than just the weekly workshops.
“For us to be able to provide academic workshops or even some of the other resources, we have student disability services within our area,” Briscoe said. “We have tutoring that’s within our area. We have a couple of different organizations that we can provide to students. And we have academic advising within our area too. And so, we can meet with these students one-on-one, see what their plans are academically and beyond. We can see how we can help them persist towards graduation, progress towards their degree and even potentially land an internship or a job opportunity. So, in our area, it’s all about retention initiatives and persisting towards graduation and actually progressing to graduation.”
The department of First Year Programs has a temporary home in 104 Horace Mann. Students with any questions can talk to staff members through regular business hours.
For those interested in the workshops more information can be found on Gorilla Engage.