FAQs for College Students
Texas Women’s University
My son is failing this semester and it’s late in the semester. Can you help?
Change happens over time. Coaching will provide the student a framework to develop a plan and work the plan to make change happen. To prepare a college student for finals, it’s best to start working with me at the beginning of the semester. However, I have worked and will work with students who aren’t doing well in the semester and finals are looming.
In this scenario, we examine each course grade average at the time and determine whether it is mathematically possible to pass the course. Then the student is faced with the decision about how to handle the situation. Is there still time to drop the course? Is there time to redeem the course and pass it? Or is failing inevitable? I will walk through this life situation with the student and endeavor to accomplish three things.
- Preserve the student’s dignity.
- Show the student how to deal with failure.
- Show the student the value of staying in the game until the end.
Do you work with students on academic probation or suspension?
A student on academic probation probably has a GPA of 1.9 or below. The school might give the student one more semester to demonstrate effort and work toward improving the GPA. One semester won’t necessarily bring a GPA above a 2.0 but if the school official sees effort and work, the student might be allowed to continue. Sometimes the dean will ask the student to work with an academic coach as a condition of the probation. Remember, the college wants the student to continue. They want to work with the students. They have many programs and offices on campus that are designed to support students.
If a student on academic probation has not demonstrated effort and improvement, depending on each school’s policies, a student might be suspended for academic reasons. The school might ask the student to sit out one semester and reapply if interested. What you do during that semester can influence whether the school will allow you to return. Talk with your dean or counselor or advisor and find out what you need to demonstrate to the school to be allowed to return. I have worked with students during the semester they must sit out and during the first semester returning after academic suspension. In this type of scenario, the coaching relationship offers a safe and accepting framework to learn from failure and learn how to rise again. I help the students see what skills they already possess and which skills they need to acquire. Failure is a wonderful time to learn. Sometimes failure makes us stop long enough to think and make some necessary changes in life.
My daughter is so smart, but she just fell apart during the COVID semesters. Can you help?
COVID was a kick in the gut. We all got sent home in March 2020 to do school online. The following semester(s) some colleges made the students stay in their dorms and take classes on their laptops in their dorm room. It was awful. Learning just crumbled especially for first year freshman. I work with college students who are picking themselves up from the unintended consequences of doing school in your pajamas on your laptop. Now four years later, students in their mid-twenties are wanting to go back and finish that college degree. They are taking online courses kind of like test driving a new car. Not sure that college is going to work for them. If you get behind the demand can escalate quickly. Before you know it, you are so far behind you can’t see how you’ll be able to finish. I help my students become project managers. Together we create a plan to manage all the assignments from all your classes. Some of my students are very organized. They know where everything is and keep everything in place. But still can’t finish a task. They might need to find their stop button. Most of my students know exactly what they need to do but simply can’t find the start button. We work on that, too. College students must manage more than class assignments. You must manage time, energy, friendships, family life, emotions, learning, health. In a coaching relationship, we work on managing your SELF.
My daughter just got diagnosed with ADHD. What do we do now?
In college the academic demands increase along with social and self-management demands. The complexity of college life creates a perfect storm. While you might have been able to handle school assignments and tests while in high school, things might start falling apart in college. This is often the scenario that prompts college students to try to solve the riddle. What’s going on? Why can’t I handle lectures, readings, assignments, social life, college life, emotions, and everything else, too?
A full psych-educational evaluation administered by a psychologist will help demystify the situation. After a full evaluation, you have a big report and a lot of information about your intellectual/cognitive performance, academic achievement, social/emotional issues, and attention abilities. That’s a lot of stuff to digest! Working with an academic/ADHD coach will create a framework to make the connection between all the new knowledge you gained from the evaluation and life. Together we work on understanding how the diagnosis impacts academics, social life and self- anagement.
My daughter just doesn’t know how to study. Can you teach her how to study?
The human brain has an amazing capacity for learning. The college student can learn how to study for specific types of assignments, such as studying for a quiz versus studying for an essay exam, as well as for specific disciplines, such as history versus accounting. Some students learn how to study by being told specific study techniques. “Rewrite your lecture notes.” “Summarize your readings and paraphrase the main points in your own words.” Some students learn how to learn by trial and error. When I coach my students, we explore what works best for them and what strategy matches the task at hand. The student creates her own goal and step-by-step action plan to complete their assignment. Then we will meet again to discuss how the plan worked out. The student learns from experiencing the outcome of the plan.