UEPC – FYAC Proposal Supplement 3
Saint Mary’s College of CA - First Year Advising Cohorts
Spring 2012
Exploring Major Choices with First Year Students:
A Resource Guide for FYAC Faculty
Table of Contents
- Activities For You and Your FYAC as a Group
MyRoad
Career Development Exploration Workshop
Upper Division Student Panel
“Taking Stock”
- Resources to Work One-on-One with Students
Academic Advising Center Choosing a Major Workshops
Continuing the MyRoad Conversation
Continuing the “Taking Stock” Conversation
- Support Services on Campus
Career Development Center One-on-One
Advising Center Coordinators One-on-One
- Putting the Pieces Together
Suggested Timeline
See the Big Picture
“The Relationship Between College and Work,” D. Asher
- Exploring the Larger Context of First Year Students and Major Choice
Statistics for Declared Majors at Saint Mary’s College
“The Targeted Advising Model for Undecided Students,” by P. Cate
“Using the Transformative,” by K. Kincanon
“Undecided/Exploratory Students and Persistence,” D. Spright
- Appendix
(A1) “Student Handout: Setting Up Your MyRoad Account”
(A2) MyRoadExploration Results
(A3)Selecting a College Major Table of Contents
(A4)“Taking Stock”
(A5)Academic Advising Center Workshop Sample (available Spring 2012)
(A6)MyRoad Conversation Starters for FYAC Faculty at SMC
(A7)“Task Analysis Worksheet”
(A8)Statistics from SMC Regarding Major Declaration and Changing
(A9)“How to Read Your Academic Evaluation”
(A10)Career Development Center Four-Year Plan
(A11)“Do Majors Really Matter?” by S. Welz
I. Activities For Your FYAC as a Group
MyRoad Website
The MyRoad website is a website to which SMC subscribes on behalf of all of its students. There are several major components that are relevant for college students.* These two are:
1)“I.D. Me”
In this portion of the website, students can explore their preferences and traits throughpersonality and interest assessments. These are not definitive, of course, but you should explain to the students that the quizzes are meant to be thought provoking. If they find themselves vehemently disagreeing with the results of one or more of the assessment tools, that should still be a valuable occasion for self-reflection and decision making.
Please keep in mind that one of the drawbacks (and strengths?) of this type of major/career planning tool is that it is based on self-assessment. The most cleverly constructed instrument can still only measure what the student knows and believes to be true about herself. Often the role of the academic advisor is to encourage students into new self-perceptions that include a realistic assessment of their aptitude for a particular field of study, for example.
2)“Explore Majors”
Once having completed these self-assessment instruments, the students are led to explore a variety of majors that might mesh well with their results. Again, if you have students who feel they have already chosen a major and have nothing to gain from these exercises, invite (insist?!) them to see this as an exercise in self-exploration that may in fact affirm their existing choice, or could open up new variations on a well-established theme in their lives. Please note that since SMC is a small liberal arts school, there are definitely majors listed in the MyRoad catalog that we do not offer, such as many different forms of Engineering majors. You will need to guide the students to seeking alternative choices within the liberal arts context.
3) “Research Careers”
The structure of the website links the information on majors to possible careers often associated with that major. Research indicates that some students find it easier to approach the question of “which major is right for me” through thinking about career options, while others find it easier to proceed from major choice to career possibilities. Certainly, most students need to toggle between each of these paths of thought throughout their undergraduate careers. On the MyRoad website they can work from either direction, starting with a career that they find interesting to search out majors that develop relevant skills or vice versa.
*Your students may see that there is a portion of the MyRoad website tailored to high school students in the process of selecting a college, they simply need to navigate out of this section and back into the section on selecting a major, etc..
Suggestion: Demonstrate the MyRoad site to your FYAC as a group or request that a facilitator be sent from the Office of Academic Advising and Achievement to get you started. Students will need the “Student Handout: Setting Up Your MyRoad Account” (A1). Ask students to complete the MyRoad self-assessment instruments and explore the suggested majors and careers over a several week period. Have them fill out the attached “MyRoad Exploration Results” form (A2) and bring it to class to discuss. Encourage them to read about at least one major/career path they had never thought about before this exercise. Also, don’t let them get away with saying, “That’s dumb! I’d never be happy with X” without providing you with a thoughtful reason as to why. Variations on this exercise might include having the students discuss their results in small groups or assigning various people certain majors and careers to explore (and report on to the class) in addition to whatever their individual results might be. Obviously, this can easily translate into a writing exercise or portfolio section, etc., if you prefer.
3)“My Plan”
This portion of theMyRoad site allows students to electronically gather and organize data about themselves, in a single, easy to access space. Students are prompted to upload writing samples that might be useful for graduate school applications, as well as activities, awards, work experience, etc., that will be relevant to both future curriculum vitae and resumes.
Suggestion: Encourage students to load as much information as they currently have about themselves having completed one semester of college. Ask them to reflect on what they hope will fill theirMyRoad portfolio by the time they graduate. Have them write a short paragraph for you regarding their aspirations in each of the portfolio categories and to articulate concrete actions they could take to achieve these goals. For Example – Goal: I want to have completed at least one paid summer internship. Action: Go to the Career Development Center now to find out about how students at SMC get placed in internships.
Career Development Exploration Workshop
The Career Development Center (CDC) offers workshops for FYAC sections that explore major selection with a bit of an emphasis on consideration of career choices as a factor in major choice. In these workshops, your students will work as a group to identify important questions to ask about career choice and steps to take while a college student to explore those choices. Some FYAC groups have also scheduled a walk through orientation at the CDC to familiarize their students with its location, staff, and resources.
Suggestion: Have students explore MyRoad in the week or two before your CDC workshop is scheduled to prepare for questions. Or, have the students prepare a list of three questions each (ahead of time) and forward these to the CDC staff so that they know what your students are interested in and/or concerned or curious about with regards to their services.
Upper Division Student Panel
Upper Division students who are near completing a particular major at SMC can be a tremendous resource for your first year students, especially because they can usually speak in SMC-specific terms, rather than the more general language of other resources. Obviously, the students you know as a professor here can be asked to visit your FYAC, but your FYAC Faculty Liaison (Cynthia Van Gilder – ) can help if you want to find students in a major with which you are largely unfamiliar.
Suggestion: Invite upper division students from various majors to come talk to your cohort. Have them describe how they selected their majors and/or minors in as much detail as they are willing (and can recall!). Have your FYAC students compose several questions each ahead of time, such as, “If for some reason you couldn’t major in X, what would your second choice have been?” “Do you have ideas about what you might do after graduation?” “To whom did you speak before making your decision?” “Who was most helpful and why?”
“Taking Stock”
“Taking Stock” (A4) is the first chapter of a book entitled,Selecting a College Major: Exploration and decision Making, by Virginia N. Gordon and Susan J. Sears (2004). This book is organized around five steps towards making a major decision which are as follows: 1) Taking Stock; 2) Exploring Self; 3) Exploring Majors; 4) Exploring Careers; 5) Making a Decision; 6) Implementing Your Decision.** The “Taking Stock” chapter encourages students to assess their status with regards to making a major choice. It also encourages them to reflect on themselves as decision makers, and the kinds of forces that may be influencing their choices (such as parents’ opinions, gender stereotyping, misinformation, etc.).
All students can benefit from the conversations started by this material, even if they feel fairly confident in their current choice of major. It provides an opportunity for “decided” students to reflect on their decision, how they made it, and if they are still comfortable with it. For “undecided” students it helps them identify where the roadblocks are to making a choice. For example, do they need to know more about the departmental offerings at SMC? Are they being held hostage by familial expectations? Or, perhaps, they just feel they don’t even know themselves well enough to make this kind of choice yet.
**See the Table of Contents (A3) provided in the Appendix for more information. Please let us know if you would like to get copies of other chapters.
Suggestion: Introduce students to the “Taking Stock” packet in FYAC class. Ask them to turn to the final two pages and read the two case studies. Together, discuss the case studies with their associated questions. Now, ask the students to thoughtfully complete the remainder of the packet and bring it to a one-on-one meeting with you to discuss their responses.
If you have students who insist that they have chosen their major, know it is the right one for them claim to be fully confident and comfortable in their choice, and simply DO NOT want to fill out the packet, try giving them this alternative exercise: Ask the student to write an essay explaining what his major is (a minimum of one robust paragraph); how it contributes/is important to society (another robust paragraph); and why it is important to him and his future career goals (a third robust paragraph). If your students can produce such an essay to your satisfaction, then they probably are ready to move on to sophomore year without any more support around major choice (at least for the time being).
II. Resources to Work One-on-One with Students
Academic Advising Center – Choosing a Major Workshops
This year the Academic Advising Center (AAC) will be offering its workshops on Major Exploration to ALL first year students as individuals rather than through the FYAC Faculty selecting the workshop for his or her group. It is hoped that this increased flexibility will benefit the faculty members, the students, and the AAC Coordinators running the workshops. If you would like to bring your FYAC as a group to a particular session, we can also accommodate that. Please contact the Director of the Academic Advising Center, Angelica Garcia at for more information.
STUDENTS SIGN UP AT:
The Major Exploration Workshops will be offered at the following times:
Monday, February 20 from 12:40-2:00PM
Friday, February 24 from 12:40-2:00PM
Wednesday, February 29 from 3:00-4:00PM
Monday, February 27 from 12:40-2:00PM
Friday, March 2 from 12:40-2:00PM
Students will be asked to sign up online for the workshop of their choice. Your students may attend whichever of the workshops is most convenient. They will all contain the same content. Currently, there is no limit to the number of students that may sign up per workshop, as we have sufficient staff to run as many as four concurrent workshops on any given day.
STUDENTS SIGN UP AT:
Suggestion: Assign your students the task of going to the URL listed above and signing up for the workshop session of their choice. You will receive a list from the AAC of all of your students who complete the workshop. Ask the students to write a reflection on what they learned. Alternatively, you could have them select one or two majors that interest them based on their experience at the workshop, and then consult the SMC Catalog to make a list of the requirements for that major. Ask them to tell you which upper division courses in that major interest them the most and why.
Continuing the MyRoad Conversation
Students get the most out of the MyRoad resource when they are asked to reflect and report back on the material they learn from the website. Use the “MyRoadConversation Starters for FYAC Faculty at SMC” (A6) and the “Task Analysis Worksheet” (A7) to help structure your one-on-one meetings with students. Please, remember it is important that students see the “ID Me” personality profiler within a larger context of personal development over time, and not as a definitive diagnostic tool that says not only who they are, but who they always will be.
Continuing the “Taking Stock” Conversation
Some of the questions in the “Taking Stock” packet may elicit very personal responses from students, and not surprisingly, they are likely to speak more candidly about these issues in a one-on-one setting with you, rather than a group discussion with their peers. This chapter is pretty straightforward, and working through the student’s pre-prepared responses will give your conversation a great deal of structure and range. We all have our own personal styles, but sometimes students enjoy hearing that either you, or a student you may have known, has had similar responses or experiences to those they are sharing with you, and that person found his or her way very successfully.
III. Support Services on Campus
Career Development Center One-on-One
The Career Development Center (CDC) has counselors available to work with students in individualized appointments. Your student will work with the counselor to identify various career interests and potential aptitudes and in effect reason “backwards” into possible majors that would support those kinds of careers. The CDC counselors can also speak to students about possible internships or other opportunities to explore various career paths.
Please direct your students to call, 631-4600, email , or drop by the Center in Brother Urban Gregory (BUG) Hall during their drop-in hours, which are Monday through Friday from 1:00 – 2:00PM.
The Director of the CDC, Patty Bishop, is available to answer questions you might have at .
Academic Advising Center One-on-One
Students may make an appointment to meet with a professional academic advisor at the Academic Advising Center, located on the ground floor of Augustine Hall by emailing Karen Miller, , or phoning her at 631-4349. If you have questions regarding the services and resources available at the Academic Advising Center, its Director, Angelica Garcia, would be happy to take your questions at .
Your student will meet with an AAC Coordinator who will pose questions (similar to those in the “Taking Stock” chapter) designed to help her identify what areas she might need to research to be able to make a choice of major. Does the student need to know more about possible careers? Does the students need to know more about the majors available at SMC? Does the student need to know more about him or herself? The Coordinator will follow up with your student to see how his or her progress is going in those knowledge areas.
PLEASE NOTE: Any student who identifies as “officially undeclared” at the end of her first year at SMC will be assigned to one of the three Coordinators as his official academic advisor from that point on. It can be great for a student to have met one or more of the Coordinators during her first year, so that this transition is less jarring. Once a student officially declares a major, she is given a faculty advisor in that discipline.
IV. Putting the Pieces Together
Suggested Timeline
1)Feb 6–Feb 10
2)Feb 13 – Feb 17
3)Feb 20 – Feb 24
4)Feb 27 – Mar 2
5)Mar 5 – Mar 9
6)Mar 19 – Mar 23
7)Mar 26 – Mar 30
[FYI: Easter Break is March 31 – April 9; April 16 advising begins for Fall Registration; Registration for First Year Students is May 3]
Weeks (1) and (2)
Introduce your students to the concept of exploring a major and decision making in college through MyRoad and other suggested FYAC group activities.