DEFINING STUDENT SUCCESS in 2017

No longer is student success defined by a cap and gown with a hat tossed high in the air.

Today, student success happens way before college graduation day and graduation is merely a checkbox with a handshake and it better come with a clear answer to now what.

Student Success happens in signposts. In preparation. In understanding. Over time ending high school and into college.

Most importantly a young students success shapes itself in efforts thru early awareness. Real world awareness, not academia or a history class they will never use. It comes when their is a supporting cast that influences them. One they need to place themselves within today, in order to be on the road to student success.

People and Being Proactive: Student Success happens magically thru the many people students choose to reach out to and ask for answers to questions they have early on and often. It's a combination of people. Real world mixed with academia so they can have perspective thru a current lens and scope of today. So they can get insights into their future. That starts with direction for right now. And thru those relationships, when they have proven themselves as ready and able, an internship or at the least an introduction to someone who can help them build on their young career. Some would say thats called being proactive early, and they would be correct.

Discovery and Elimination First: See, it takes time to discover what they want to do because they have to clearly define what they don't want to do first. And to go with that, why they don't want to do it. It's Don'ts first, that shape the do's over time. It's the why that helps them start to build considerations to think about. It's an elimination game today in 2016 first, not a choosing game. No one is picking careers anymore, because when they do, after 3-4 years, that shifts.

Interests change over time: A student's interests change over time. Their skills develop. And new jobs that are available now won't be in some cases when they graduate. Today, jobs that don't even exist now, surely will in 2018 and 2019. We have heard that before but are seeing it now more then ever.

Freshman year must no longer be a waste of time and student success driven development must begin Day 1 freshman year being defined thru signposts and a plan they have to grow early. Success posts along the way of sorts.

'Co-Curricular Agenda's' are a step in the right direction by Universities: A productive start to that by campuses now is a 'co-curricular' agenda that runs alongside student transcripts. The co-curricular agenda is a developmental program that universities are now putting forth. Nice job EDU America!

...BUT this must be made customizable for every student. Why? Because they will need to define their own road to success and not just get points on a pre-setup seminar to attend. That must happen soon!

The Inherent Problem with Co-Curricular Model and a Solution: The immediate problem with this current Co-Curricular Model is that it doesn't reward them for outside the campus efforts (notice we said reward based on effort, for a later article). A miss for Universities and speaks to a much larger problem we seek to solve quickly. It should be student individual efforts that stretch skills and exemplify personal growth with an incentive attached; points based on the students output. Honing in, specifically student's should get points on the people THEY REACH OUT TO and meet ON THEIR OWN that they didn't know prior. What helps a university and equally a student are the students' individual efforts they make ON THEIR OWN, not the serving up of a softball with 'here is a career fair' or 'here is a seminar with some alumni'. That is all career dev gravy and will happen anyway as secondary to a student's success. Do you have thoughts on this??? like / no / go jump off a bridge? Tell us!

A Student's True Success Moment and Outcome is when: they can summarize what an expert has said to them on an informational interview they setup and conducted on their own with their own messaging, coordination, and preparation. Once they complete it and thank someone for their time leaving an open door for further communication, they can now take that back to the class to share. They share what the answers were to key questions they asked and share with the class thru collaboration more about the time they had together. That is student success in 2017. That will be how students win today. Thru experts, not academia. Academia is understaffed and outdated, sorry EDU.

We Change How Universities Seek to Get Students Motivated: We seek to change how universities incentivize students and teach students how to develop their own success thru outside experts. Just one pillar in our model. We believe in competition there is only 1 trophy for the winner, period. The rest are losers and come back to try to win again. But for incentives, rewards, and vision, (just like in sales and marketing teams) we know that point systems, and monetary rewards always get things going especially when a course costs $1,000 per credit in many cases.

For Themselves by themselves makes Gen Z winners for life: What truly defines student success is what each student does for themselves, on their own, for them.

• Exposures Over Experience: What they expose themselves to, early as Gen Z'ers. That road of preparation, exposures, and experience all makes a great story students can confidently speak about over and over because they went thru it. Exposure comes first before experience. It's the exposures that make the experiences. It's the willingness to exposure yourself as a young person that makes for great experience. It's effort.
• Tell a Story of Skills and Success: Having a real story to tell to employers confidently helps them sell themselves for that first internship, last internship, or first job out. Creating that real story to tell is what student success molds itself thru with how they boosted their skills along the way.
• Sell vs. Market: Being able to sell yourself based on real experience you created and went thru; defined very differently then marketing yourself, and for a later article...

Success defined thru A Mindset of Growth: Although 'Success' is something abstract, subjective, and ongoing, Student Success is about foundation, getting setup for their lives early (aka: adulting), discovery, happiness, and knowing exactly what they need to do and doing it. Preparing with a series of internships, a network of experts, and a story of themselves thru college they can be happy and proud of to tell others. Also so when they graduate they will feel very prepared, confident, and most of all have the right Mindset for the real world they are heading into. A mindset that they take with them for life, grow with, and help their peers as a young thought leader.

• Awareness of What To Do.
• Effort to Get Ahead
• Discovery to Open Opportunities.
• DO YOU HAVE A FOURTH_______________________. Let me know.

Those 3 above truly define student success more then ever. At least the building blocks toward student success Cutting thru the clutter and poor perceptions of them in the job marketplace so they can change people's opinions of them. Allow themselves to be viewed as the individual not a whole group or generation perceived to have poor skills. Student Success takes a supporting cast of experts around them to help them get ahead. To help them define their version of student success. And be able to speak about it to get hired.

If you have thoughts or feedback on what students success looks like, feel free to comment below. If you know a student who needs to get setup for success now, reach out via LinkedIn privately to me, and we can make that happen at GTU.

-TJ Pingitore - National Student Success Ambassador & Student Success Coach.