Back to school: Four things you should know before class begins

It does not matter if you are returning to school from summer break, from a prolonged hiatus, or if you are just fresh out of high school – college can be challenging for everyone. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to feel more confident about your success this quarter.

Enrolling in the student success course:

Enrollment in student success courses is strongly associated with positive academic outcomes. Studies have shown that those who complete these courses have higher overall GPAs and are more likely to complete their degrees than those who do not.

Student success courses are designed to provide students with timely information that range from awareness of campus facilities and support services to study and time-management strategies.

The Southeast Community College’s student success course is available this fall term at the Lincoln campus, as well as online.

Building a strong support system:

The Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) reports that most community college students struggle to balance family and work responsibilities with academic life. However, most students are too embarrassed and reluctant to admit that they need help.

In “The Adult Learner’s Companion,” author Deborah Davis says that students usually only admit to needing help when it is already too late.

Students should let others know what they need (or might need) before classes even begin, so they can be more prepared to help when obstacles arise.

“At the first sign of doubt or difficulty, go to your family, your friends, your boss, your teacher, or your administrator for help,” Davis suggests. “People are not mind readers; they don’t know you’re having any kind of difficulty until you tell them.”

In order to avoid becoming overburdened, students must acknowledge that academic success is not something that can be accomplished alone – it requires team effort.

Doing research online:

The process of gathering credible sources for research projects or assignments can be extremely stressful and time-consuming. Of all online resources, the SCC virtual library is by far the easiest and fastest way to obtain reliable information, as it provides students with free access to numerous academic journals, databases, e-books, films and much more.

If students are unable to locate what they need on the SCC virtual library, they can always turn to Google. However, it usually takes longer to sort out credible sources from it.

A timesaving trick is to narrow down search results so that they are more relevant to what students are looking for. Students can set specific websites or file types from where the desired information must originate.

PDF files are commonly used for scholarly articles, official reports and other relevant material. In order to only get results in this format, students must type the information they seek into the Google search bar and add “filetype:PDF” after the keywords.

Similarly to PDF files, students can look for the information they need within a specific website by typing the keywords and “site:” followed by the website address. For example, if a student wants to find publications about President Obama on the New York Times, he or she must type “President Obama site:nytimes.com.”

Another great way to perform well in school is to constantly read the news. Although most news sources only allow people to read a certain amount of free articles per month, the Washington Post provides unlimited access to students who subscribe to the website with their college email accounts.

Keeping a clear goal in mind

A study published last year by the Community College Review found that a common characteristic among successful students is that they all have well-defined goals in mind.

However, simply having a clear objective appears to not be enough. A recent report issued by the William T. Grant Foundation states that while most community college students report to having long-term plans to obtain a bachelor’s degree, only 20 percent of them actually succeed.

More important than having a long-term goal is defining effective strategies to achieve it.

Long-term goals alone may seem too farfetched when students are facing extreme hardships in their lives.

This can lead them to mistakenly believe that their ambition to succeed in college was unrealistic in the first place. Feeling defeated, these students are likely to give up on their education entirely.

Psychologists recommend that once students establish a realistic long-term goal, they need to set short-term objectives to help them achieve their main goal. Then, these short-term goals need to be broken down further into smaller daily tasks that can be more easily managed.