Citrus College will implement new academic pathways for students in the fall semester to speed up graduation and transfer and focus on career prospects. The program is being led by faculty co-leads Nicole Smith and Rebecca Rudd, who ran a presentation on Dec. 9 to the Citrus College Academic Senate detailing the new pathways.
Smith and Rudd’s presentation displayed how the new pathways, labeled Career & Academic Pathways, detail what classes students need to take to give them a clear course map and job opportunity information through counseling courses and career milestones.
Career milestones such as when to apply for internships, creating portfolios and resumes, transfer deadlines and counseling courses that explore majors and career choices are further integrated into the pathways.
Teams built for the new pathways will also create new career events, internships and cooperative learning opportunities. These career milestones and programs are specialized for the seven new categorized career and academic pathways that can be found on Citrus College’s Guided Pathways webpage.
The seven new pathways group all majors together by related courses into different branches categorized by related career fields. The pathway groups are: Business and Information Technology; Visual Arts, Performing Arts and Design; Communication, Literature and Languages; Exercise and Health Sciences; Social and Behavioral Studies; STEM and Career and Technical Education.
Within the seven CAP, the grouped majors give all students a clear course path with a special focus on students who are behind in math and English through new support classes. Students who find themselves struggling with these core subjects will now have extra support from these new support classes as well as academic advisers following their progress, as shown from Smith and Rudd’s presentation.
Academic advisers closely monitor important points within each pathway, called momentum points, and provide assistance and outreach to students. Academic advisers are placed and uniquely trained within the seven CAP to best assist the students by monitoring momentum points and other class data to see if students are on track.
As of now only two pathways, Business and Information Technology and Social and Behavioral Studies, are fully mapped out, while those remaining will be finalized and ready for students in the fall semester.
