Advising

We know that approximately 60% of UGA students change their major at least once. We also know that if that change happens after their first 60-hours, it impacts their time to graduation. To address this issue, we have established six focus areas that cluster our 140+ majors into groups with significant overlap in core classes. The meta-majors reflect broad conceptions of post-UGA aspirations, are aligned to specific programs of study, and reflect the Holland Interest Inventory (which incoming students take as part of the Orientation Intake Survey).

UGA is creating holistic “maps” for all programs of study. They will touch on almost every component of the USG Momentum approach by providing students with a holistic, longitudinal view of their chosen major. Each map will address attainable, appropriate action items across all aspects of the college experience: academics, experiential learning, community engagement, global competencies, wellbeing, and career preparation. Charting a course through these milestones will deepen the purposeful choice process and outline clear pathways through a major toward graduation.

The Orientation Intake Survey results in a better advising appointment during Orientation and prompts students to assess confidence in their intended major such that they receive guidance on making a purposeful choice before they even register for classes.

Provide an array of career services and develop collaborative career programming through alumni involvement in disseminating the career information.

Support student success through- 

Advising Redesign which includes Faculty Mentoring. All Freshmen at GSC are assigned a professional advisor and faculty mentor. Advisors and faculty mentors work together to deploy touchpoints for each student.

Retention and graduation rates have increased nationally due to the implementation and design of well-crafted program maps with an emphasis on students taking fuller schedules categorized by the 15-to-finish initiative. Gordon State College made early efforts to create program maps with co-curricular milestones using the theme of Gordon’s Highlander EDGE. After careful review we noticed that some of the program maps had not been pressure tested and we have now determined a plan to carefully review, and pressure test our program maps annually.