By Curlada Eure-Harris
All higher education institutions encourage students to accomplish a variety of activities in order for them to achieve success in college. Here are 10 commonly expected activities to accomplish, to achieve some noteworthy level of college success.
1.Apply to the college. .
2.Select an academic major from the college’slist.
3.Select one of the college’scurriculum of courses to follow.
4.Register, pay and complete courses with the required grade (2.0 minimum) or better, needed for subsequent course access and graduation.
5. Apply for the certificate/s and or degree/s earned.
6. Let others know what you achieved. Celebrate!
7. Participate in the graduation ceremony.
8. Use your college experience to improve your quality of life and that of others.
9. Stay connected to your college as an alumni.
10. Do things after graduation that cause your college to celebrate you again, and enable you to celebrate your college achievement.
In addition to these common ten accomplishments, there are many more personal accomplishments for you to achieve in order to acquire those common keys that colleges recognize. So here are 10 additional keys for college success, from a community college licensed professional, personal, academic and career counselor perspective.
1. Realize that your “formal education” started, more or less, 12 years before you were ready to continue it in college. Expect a lifetime of changing motivations and needs.
2. Realize that there is no match for you, genetically, in over 3.5 million years, according to the Human Genome Research results, completed in 2003. So only you can use that less-than-a-penny amount of unique you, to be the wisdom for your life via decisions to realize the fulfillment of your life as your contribution to humanity!
3. Decide how you are going to breath, eat, sleep, drink water, have stable, personally funded or cooperative living arrangements daily and at the same time, apply yourself to the 3 to 5 hours a week, that each college credit may demand of you, the first time you take them.
4. Realize that self-advocacy, or letting others know the best you are willing to achieve at that time, is controlling your success, without excuses.
5 Realize that college is just a portion of what one needs, in order to have what one wants to be known for, occupationally.
6. Go to class! Learn to participate! Prepare! Review!
7. Relate to your instructor as the one you hired to guide you with the information you provide about the way you learn or are learning.
8.Treat on- line courses just like you treat face to face courses. Schedule time for them.
9. Plan UN-dedicated, UN-scheduled, time, that is available each week, for what you may discover, didn't plan on, or don't control.
10. Allow yourself to persist towards your goals even when you face challenges or fail, by seeking the growth lesson for you in each experience and by keeping your eye on a visible reward for you within your near future.
Now how about describing your perspective on college success and sharing your top 10 ideas with us?
Curlada Eure-Harris is a Lansing, MI community college licensed professional counselor, student development professor and former community college academic advisor. She assists students and prospective students at Lansing Community College. You can email her at eurehac@lcc.edu.
Printed in the August 20, 2017 – September 2, 2017 edition.
