Next semester is a clean slate for your student. How will they approach it?
By: The Center for Student Academic Support
Fall semester is coming to an end and the Christmas season is just around the corner. As your student reflects on their experience, we encourage you to remind them that spring semester is a clean slate. When classes resume in January, your student gets to start anew. How are they going to approach this new beginning? Will they start with regret or embrace past failures as a way to learn and grow? Were they practicing good self-care throughout the 16 weeks of the fall semester?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines resilience as the ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune or change. A successful student is a resilient student. Resiliency is not tied just to academics, but to student development, student involvement, and emotional well-being and balance. There is a plethora of support areas on campus where your student can build additional skills to support their pursuit in a well-rounded college experience, and help prepare them for life after Gonzaga. We hope your student had a successful fall semester and will begin their spring semester prepared for potential challenges and opportunities to build resilience. They may need to tap into their “resilience well” in order to adjust to their new schedule, new courses, new trials and new experiences. The change of semesters can be a challenge and there are numerous on-campus resources available to all students.
For example, the Center for Student Academic Success offers Learning Strategies Management. (LSM) is an excellent resource providing a peer tutoring and mentoring program, free strength and skill building workshops, and online resources (such as time management, goal setting, study strategies, etc.) through our virtual Learning Studio website. Also available are professional Learning Strategists who are available to work one-on-one with students. These professionals are often invited into our classrooms and present on topics such as SMART Goals, Midterm Strategies, Get Organized, Time Management, and Finals Prep.
Our Learning Studio is also a space in Foley Library where peer tutors and coaches, called Learning Assistants, offer small group, and one-on-one tutoring in a number of areas. Many professors and departments use the Learning Studio to work with students outside the classroom. The LSM staff does encourage all students to visit faculty office hours, followed by available departmental group tutoring before engaging in one-one-one tutoring in the Learning Studio. The goal of the Learning Studio is to expand on the university’s current departmental group tutoring programs, and provide peer learning and study strategy support. To schedule a one-on-one peer tutoring appointment, students can access our calendar available through an online scheduling tool. If the subject area for which they are seeking a tutor is not available, students should email our professional staff at learningstrategies@gonzaga.edu. We will do our best to assist!
We encourage you to take some time over the holidays to address any issues that came up during fall semester and help your student formulate a plan for their clean slate!
From all of us in the Center for Student Academic Success, we wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.