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In late 2022, I was at the president’s house at the University of South Carolina (USC) celebrating the 50th anniversary of University 101 (U101), which began as an experimental educational initiative and has now grown to be the standard bearer of first-year seminars across the world. As I was relishing the attention and recognition, our president quickly brought me back to reality by pulling me aside and asking, “what’s next?” While he was certainly appreciative of the efforts that have put USC on the map for the first-year experience, it was clear he wanted us to be excellent in supporting students beyond their first year.
While many institutions have developed programs to support students in their first year, an increasing number are attempting to be strategic and intentional in helping continuing students be successful — from sophomores to graduating seniors. Student transition has long been a subfield of the student success movement. My colleagues at the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition have been thinking about and studying transition points beyond the first year for a long time — yet, support for these students still lags behind those that are provided for first-year students.
As we thought about the “what’s next” question, the key question on our campus became: “How can we build an experience that will help students in every year at the university?” We have spent the last two years developing a plan that is now called the “Carolina Experience.” The heart of this initiative is to expand upon the efficacy of the first year by helping students to continue their trajectory at USC through understanding and addressing identified challenges for transfer, sophomore, junior, and senior students. The Carolina Experience emphasizes sense of belonging through relationship development, connections to key resources, and career readiness through mentoring, programming, and course work.
My department, University 101 Programs, is responsible for the curricular side of the equation. We are building several new courses to help students in their second, third, and fourth years of study at the university — with a focus on career readiness, financial literacy, and overall well-being. Underscoring our approaches to all our classes will be connecting students to relevant resources, checking in with students to see how they are doing, and establishing a community and sense of belonging. As stated in my previous blog post, we know that sense of belonging is the number one predictor of persistence, so it is important to continue to ensure that students in all years of study feel that they belong.
While there are so many ways to support students in their transition through and out of the university, I feel strongly that courses are the best way to provide the structure and support that students need. We know that students may not always do the things that are optional, and unless we create required and intentional structures for them to scaffold their development at the university, many students won’t take advantage of the systems that are in place. Course credit and grades are the coin of the realm — the academic currency that can serve to motivate and incentivize students to put in the time on task necessary for the hard thinking, reflection, and application to develop their career readiness skills.
I know many educators get frustrated when we hear students say, “I didn’t know about that,” or “I wish I had known about that sooner,” especially when we work so hard to communicate all the great things we have to offer. But we must recognize that simply telling students about our programs and services may not be the best approach. By just advertising, we put the burden on students to know what they need to know. But if we were serious about helping them thrive, we would require them to participate in the experiences we know that they need. So, if we are trying to ensure that our students are thinking clearly and thoughtfully about their career development, we shouldn’t rely on them to take the initiative to use resources such as the career center alone. Instead, we should be creating required experiences or courses that will demand their active participation in these tasks.
Towards this end, we are developing two new courses, U202 and U303, that will serve along with U101 as an intentional sequence from the first through the final year of study at USC. For the sake of brevity, let me focus now on the sophomore course. The purpose of U202 is to help second-year students be successful as they transition into the next phase of their college careers. This course aims to enhance students’ career readiness, help students continue to clarify their purpose, meaning, and direction, and help them maintain their connection to USC. As a result of taking this course, students will…
- Articulate career pathways by understanding interests, values, and skills.
- Construct effective professional materials (i.e. resume, cover letter, LinkedIn) that will demonstrate career readiness.
- Evaluate how financial decisions will impact their present and future.
- Develop positive relationships with peers, staff, and faculty.
These courses were developed by several dozen professionals through a three-phase model that I created for creating and implementing new courses. My next essay will describe this model, as well as provide an analysis of the needs of sophomore students.
If you are interested in engaging in these conversations with professionals beyond your campus, I encourage you to check out the work we are doing at the National Resource Center by attending a conference, reading our publications, joining a listserv, or participating in an online course. You may be heartened to know that there is a wide community of educators out there facing similar challenges, having similar conversations, and who have important successes and wisdom to share. Our continuing students deserve the same love, support, and structure as our new students.
