College Success Diet: The Insider’s Guide to College and Career Success

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - May 6, 2015 - PRLog -- Achieving college and career success weighs heavily on the minds of most new and continuing undergraduates including first generation college students as well as adult learners.  And how to go about that is usually their primary challenge.

Applying “it takes a village” perspective, a new Amazon eBook, The College Success Diet: The Insider’s Guide to College and Career Success shares the insider benefits of student engagement in the advising culture of higher education by promoting student initiated adviser relationship building and networking strategies to achieve their college and career goals.

“Student success is built on a student-centered culture…In the 21st century, institutions are going to have to change to meet the needs of our students. And that change means cultural change.” states Dr. Murial A. Howard, President of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

A 2013 annual survey conducted by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documented a very unsettling profile.   Involving 113,000 students at 224 diverse institutions across the country, the results revealed that:

·         Undergraduate students normally met with their academic advisers only once or twice a year;

·         One in ten never met with their adviser;

·         Only 40% identified their academic adviser as their primary information source regarding their academic plans;

·         Adviser-student caseloads range from 1 to 230 to as high as 1 to 600 depending on the size of the institution.

The NSSE 2014 survey also revealed similar disturbing results.

Academic advisers are, in fact, the key culture interpreters of all the information students need to adapt comfortably to campus life, navigate potential academic challenges, and successfully complete undergraduate degree requirements.

Yet, most students are unfamiliar with the broad range of advising personnel available on college campuses today and how nurturing these relationships can benefit them tremendously.

The College Success Diet lays out a strategic blueprint for undergraduate students including adult learners to follow on how to assume a more pro-active role in networking and selecting campus personnel to serve as formal and informal advisers on their college and career success teams.

By doing so, students can enhance their chances for success in ultimately achieving their educational and career goals.

About the Authors: The genesis of the College Success Diet resulted from a Thanksgiving conversation between the two authors, a first/second generation mother/son team, Dr. Lana W. Jackman and Philip S. Jackman.  While collaboratively analyzing their own college and career experiences, they realized a simple, yet disturbing pattern.  College students, in general, are unfamiliar with the inner workings of higher education and how that culture actually supports student academic and career success.

As a higher education professional and principal of her own management consulting practice, Mélange Information Services (http://melangemyccr.com/), Dr. Jackman is a strong advocate for students becoming informed, empowered consumers, particularly as it relates to achieving their own college and career success. Dr. Jackman also serves as president of the National Forum on Information Literacy. (http://www.infolit.org)