April 2009 Issue

Student Success Tip

Surviving the Last Month of the Semester

In many courses the bulk of the grades are awarded during the last month of the semester.  Your son or daughter is most likely facing end-of-semester pressure due to working on multiple final projects or presentations and trying to prepare for final exams.  It is about this time that students start to lose their motivation, become overwhelmed by their commitments, or realize that they are not doing as well as they’d like in some of their courses.  Encourage your son or daughter to ask for help or to obtain clarification from a professor.  Share your own struggles and strategies for coping with your son or daughter.  Encourage them to develop a plan for completing their projects and goals for the semester.

Students need to make a commitment as to when they will work on their projects and need to be specific about when they want to complete the work.  To ensure that they use their time wisely, students should outline the smaller steps needed to complete the project or reach their goal.  Working on the assignment a little at a time and setting deadlines for completing each part will help students stay on track.  Students should also reward themselves after completing a task.  The bigger the accomplishment the bigger the reward should be.

Making the Best Use of Summer

Hopefully, your son or daughter already has plans for the summer.  One way students can stand out as a graduate college applicant or potential new employee is to be able to boast that they have attempted to prepare themselves academically, and also professionally by using school breaks (summer, fall, winter, and spring) to gain experience.  Students can explore areas of interest and potential careers through internships, job shadowing, volunteering, or paid employment.  In addition to career building basics, students can use the summer to diversify their experiences through community service and study abroad opportunities.  Some students also stay over the summer to work on research or take summer classes at Wittenberg.

If your student is still figuring out what they want to do this summer, here is how you can help.

• Ask your student what he or she is interested in. What does it mean to “have a worthwhile summer” in your student’s eyes?  Identifying what’s important to your son or daughter will help you help them reach their goals.
• Direct your student to WittPath Career Services. The staff in this office can support students through the process of finding summer jobs, internships and more. 
• Put out some feelers and help your student network.  It’s not your job to “fix” the summer plans issue for your student.  Yet, if your student asks, put out some feelers in town. Let community members know that your talented, hard-working student will be around and looking for work!
• Talk about academic opportunities available in the summer.  Do they want/need to take summer courses to get ahead or catch up academically?  Do they want to work with faculty on a research project?  Encourage your student to talk with their advisor about the opportunities available during Summer Session and the process of transferring credits from other schools.

This Month's Topics:

• A Note from Parents Association
• Student Success Tip 
• Calendar - Dates to Know
• Important Academic Information
• Student Life Corner
• Commencement Information
• Complete Printable Text