Your first year experience at Georgia Highlands College is critical in laying the groundwork for a successful academic and professional career. Employers view a well-rounded successful academic career as evidence that students can be equally successful and productive in their chosen fields. Success for the first-year student begins by mastering three principal tasks of the first year student:
- Developing Academic Skills
- Adjusting to College Life
- Developing Academic & Career Goals
GHC’s Freshman Year Experience (FYE) is an outstanding, student development program that assists first-year students in accomplishing these tasks. The program is designed for all incoming first-year students.
Program Components
The First Year Experience is a year-long set of courses and projects that focus on helping students achieve excellence in their academics. The major program components of FYE are the FCST 1010 course, the FCST 1020 course, learning communities, academic advising, tutoring, peer mentors and service-learning.
FCST 1010 - The College Experience is a two-hour credit course that students take with an assigned faculty member within the first two semesters of enrollment. This course was developed by a specially selected committee of faculty, staff, and administrators to help ease the transition from high school to college and give first year students a boost on their way to graduation. The course includes topics such as time management, study skills, learning styles, critical thinking skills, academic planning, and test taking strategies. FCST 1010 will help students improve study habits, become more effective and efficient learners, make decisions about a major, increase awareness and use of university facilities and support services. Through a Service Learning project and electronic portfolio construction, students will learn to seek and accept personal responsibility and grow personally, socially and intellectually. For more information on the FCST 1010 course, please visit https://www.highlands.edu/site/fye-fcst-1010-.
FCST 1020 - Career Choices and Decision Making is for students have completed the FCST 1010 course, they may choose to continue their exploration by taking the FCST 1020 course. FCST 1020 is a two-hour credit course that will help students discover their vocational calling and develop a life plan to achieve those academic and career goals. For more information on the FCST 1020 course, please visit https://www.highlands.edu/site/fye-fcst-1020
eFolioWorld Electronic Portfolio System (eFolio) is an organized, annotated electronic repository of a student's work that allows for collection and display of artifacts, such as projects, audio and video clips, sample work, and other web-based materials that demonstrate professional capabilities and achievements. Each FYE student will be given an eFolioWorld account to create his or her own electronic portfolio. Through technology assignments infused with course content, the FCST 1010 course will guide the student through establishing proficiency in the eFolioWorld interface. The eFolio will be used in subsequent classes throughout tenure at GHC to upload various projects, assignments, and reflections. Students benefit by having a tool to organize and build a resume for university and grant applications, or their career. For more information on the eFolioWorld Electronic Portfolio system, please visit https://www.highlands.edu/site/fye-efolioworld-electronic-portfolios.
Learning Communities - Students who participate in FYE have a chance to be a part of a learning community. While GHC offers a variety of courses utilizing the Learning Community model, the FYE Learning Community will be pairing FCST 1010 with READ 0099. READ 0099/FCST 1010 - "READ IS NOT A FOUR-LETTER WORD", will have a cohort of students, who will benefit from integrated coursework. One major advantage of learning communities is that they contribute to a higher level of student participation in learning. Students in learning communities report greater personal involvement in academic and social activities. They also tend to see faculty and student peers as more welcoming and supportive.
Service-Learning – FYE students participate in a service-learning project, The Citizen Project, which integrates community service with academic instruction that focuses on critical thinking, reflective thinking and civic responsibility. Service-learning programs involve students with community non-profit organizations that addresses local needs, while developing their academic skills, sense of civic responsibility, and commitment to the community. All FCST 1010 classes host a Volunteer Fair to help these local organizations recruit GHC volunteers for their various projects. Past partnering organizations have included Women of W.O.R.T.H., Floyd County Animal Control, Mountain Top Experience, Cultural Arts Center Community Group, Center for Children and Young Adults, Pal's Place Pet Adoption and Educational Center, Little Angel's Foundation, B-Fit 4 Life, Advocates for Children, The Mercy House, and many others. Partnerships are based on volunteer opportunities available and student interest.
Benefits of service-learning include:
- Provides quality education;
- Increases the relevancy of education to students "living in a real world;
- Teaches positive values, leadership, citizenship and personal responsibility;
- Empowers students as learners, teachers, achievers and leaders;
- Invites students to become members of their new community;
- Teaches job skills and prepares students for careers after college;
- Contributes to a university's outreach efforts to the local community, the state and beyond;
- Increases campus-community collaboration and partnerships and
- Increases retention
Don't Forget: The GHC Tutorial Center is here to provide free tutoring for our students for many of our courses including math, writing, reading, science, history, and many others . For more information about the Student Success Center please visit http://www.highlands.edu/site/tutorial-center .