As a nontraditional student, when you add academics to an already full life and busy routine, it’s a considerable undertaking. Getting support from those around you is key, but it can feel uncomfortable to directly ask for help. What you may not realize is that you already have a built-in network surrounding you.
In your personal life, close friends, family members, and coworkers are often excited (and inspired) to hear about your progress and challenges in your online classes. At the UNH College of Professional Studies, your academic advisor is fully committed to serving in this role.
How Does it Work?
At UNH CPS, we use an “appreciative advising” model to help you reach your goals and take full advantage of your educational experience. This approach emphasizes relationship building, integrating academic and career interests, collaborative planning and goal setting, and more. Here are a few of the key elements!
Share your Story
First, appreciative advising is all about building strong relationships that are based on trust and the mutual goal of making the most out of your college experience. Each time we meet, we’ll strive to create a welcoming environment and encourage you to share your goals, passions, dreams, strengths, and, yes, concerns. Through our conversations, we’ll gain a picture of where you’d like to go, what’s important to you, and how we can best help you reach your goals.
Envision Your Future
Many successful business owners and professionals agree that using visualization to map out your future can be an extremely powerful tool in making your goals a reality. By incorporating your interests and passions into life and career goals, we’ll help you create a vision of what you can become. Once you’ve set career goals, we can help you dig in to the skills, certifications, experience, and competencies needed for that career. With a strong career focus and goal for your education, you’ll feel inspired and connected to your major. After all, knowing there’s an exciting new career path and possibly a higher salary waiting for you after graduation is a huge motivator.
Create a Plan and Celebrate Your Success
Once you’ve determined where you’d like to go, you’ll feel empowered to make your own decisions and create a concrete plan to achieve your goals. Having this plan will give you the confidence of knowing you can achieve a lot by taking things one step at a time and we’ll be available to help you map out each step. While you implement your plan, we’ll be there to help you predict obstacles and brainstorm strategies to overcome them, recalibrate your plan when needed and determine, document, and celebrate milestones and successes.
Find Additional Support
Sometimes difficulties come up that you don’t expect. When this happens, adjust the plan but don’t give up on your goals. When you do find you need additional support in reaching your goals, we can offer advice and referrals to the many student resources at your disposal such as counseling, tutoring, career services, time management skills and other student success tips to help you succeed and get back on track.
Reflection & Growth
As you work toward your degree, we’ll be here to challenge you to push your goals to greater heights as you grow as as student, giving you a boost of confidence to achieve more than you thought possible. We won’t settle or give up on you! Our goal is to see you succeed in each course, at graduation, in a new career, and in your personal life.