Developing A College Mindset for College Success

College drop out rates are still concerning. How can you succeed in College? In this Episode we continue to look at education as a means to success; yet education is not cheap & many don't get the education at the pre tertiary levels to make it through college & to have the careers of their choices. Drop out rates are still concerning & four year colleges find that students are spending longer times to complete their degrees. We discussed what education & learning professionals are finding as it relates to why & how students succeed throughout college which is redefining the way college programs are being developed at the outset. The episode was inspired & co-produced by Mr. Donte Nelson who is himself a first year College student at Capella University. The segment is broken up in two. Segment one we introduced the episode by playing a video of Caroline Dwerk's "Power of Yet" Speech where she drives home the point that failures are not yet and shared stories of how perspectives affect students abilities to take on academic challenges. In the second segment, we delve into some data from the National Center for Education statistics, showing college students drop out and graduation rates and discuss with Mr. Nelson this idea of Self Efficacy, personal growth and having a college mindset towards achieving college success. We share these important stats in the episode: Academic performance such as grade point average, and credits earned during specific periods, and academic retention and graduation, are what professionals usually use to predict College success (Robbins et al., 2004). College success remain a major concern as data suggest a dropout rate of up to 45% with an average bachelor’s degree turn-around-time of over 6 years (Barefoot, 2004). The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 2015 only 59% of the students who entered 4-year colleges and universities graduated within 6 years over 21% of those students left after their first year (Kena et al., 2015). Nevertheless, when we ask; What is the key to climbing out of poverty? Dr. Andre Isaacs, who moved from Jungle Jamaica to now College Professor and Chemist at College of the Holly answered by saying, “having an education, yet education is not cheap,” Moreover, we learned that many students are not prepared to take on certain college courses which affect their career choices as they do not feel as though they were fully prepared for college; that was according to Brother Maurice Smith, a Senior Social Work Professional in Philadelphia; and this may explain certain disparities in society as many of those same unprepared students switch to social services degrees and end up taking jobs with low wages that do not allow them to advance in society but keep them debt burdened and stuck within a cycle. However, many students have resumed classes this week, and if you were in California, you would have started 2 weeks ago. But what is alarming is that the Department of Education in Cali reported that over 50 percent of students did not show up for classes. And in Delaware recently, the school district reported that students are underperforming as the academic reports for K-12 students for 2021-2022 show that students did not achieve proficiency levels, compared to pre-COVID performance, but if truth be told, students were falling behind before COVID. Students fell behind and are falling behind academically. The study suggested that the main factors were not necessarily cognitive factors such as academic aptitude, but more so those that succeeded had developed a college mindset that helped them to develop self-efficacy and a determination to get through, deal with the new demands and complex with the ability to make adjustments based on a self-determination. Mr. Nelson explains that is it in changing one's attitude that one will change their world which is to say change your perspective, you'll change your world. --- Support this p