Last week my co-instructor and I finished our last college success class for a group of students who just completed their first semester here at BCC. What makes this group unique is that all of them have earned GEDs. They also have the other more typical barriers our students face: most are parents, all work, and all have numerous challenges academically and personally.
In our final class, they did a power point presentation called “My 32 Day Commitment”. Essentially, each student had to choose a short-term goal for the semester and spend 32 days taking a specific action to accomplish the goal. Why 32 days? Typically that’s how long it takes to develop a new habit and most of their goals were about developing new study habits to help them finish the semester.
This is an especially challenging project for a number of reasons one of which is knowing how to effectively choose a goal that was specific, dated, measurable, and related to their education. Over the semester we spent a good deal of time refining their goals. In the end, what was most important was not so much the precision of the goal, but the fact that they were actually paying attention to school, in general. Setting that intention helped all of them to finish and finish well.
One of the best parts of the presentations is listening to students talk about their experiences and the lessons they have learned over the semester:
My successes all started when I received my GED.I realized that I could do any thing I put my mind to. Here at bcc my success has been passing writing
I learned to be able to get up enough courage to believe in myself and get my life in order.so that I could create a better future for myself and family.
My successes were completing and passing the quizzes. I felt successful when I realized I could accomplish whatever I put my mind to.
One student added this song to her presentation. I think it sums up her experience very well.
They have climbed and will continue to do so. Good luck to all my students.