San Jose State University College Tour- Another SUCCESS!!!
The Transfer Center recently visited San Jose State University on Friday, April 25 for a college visit. And despite the unpleasant weather conditions, over 45 students were in attendance, including students from the Hermanos Y Hermanas program and Puente. Similar to the Cal State East Bay tour, the visit was a private tour and included an Admissions presentation with one of their admissions counselors. The presentation covered transfer requirements, programs and resources available to students on campus, and information on degrees and majors. The admissions counselor remained on-hand to answer student questions such as which majors were most popular, what GPA is required to transfer to SJSU and other integral questions that helped students learn about their options to transfer.
Following the admissions presentation, students where escorted on a guided tour of the campus where they had an opportunity to learn about the historic importance of the school, where key departments such as the Engineering, Social Sciences, and Humanity offices were located, and a quick visit to the library, which is the largest library west of the Mississippi! From there, students were treated to lunch at the Dining Commons, which was sponsored by the Transfer Center and Hermanos Y Hermanas program. Students were able to order food from a wide variety of restaurant options and many students indulged in free Jamba Juice.
Also, the most important part was that this tour helped some students decided whether or not they wanted to transfer to SJSU. Some students expressed that this tour helped them learn about housing opportunities, financial aid, impacted majors, student support programs, and the diversity that SJSU offers to their students. Some students said, “they do have my career and since they are in the Silicon Valley, they make it easier to find a job.” Other students said, “…there are a lot of job opportunities after graduating from SJSU.” Overall, students found the tour to be very helpful when it came to their transfer knowledge and options.
Special thanks to the Transfer Center team who planned and coordinated the admissions presentations and tour, and to Alberto Santellan for taking students on a short surprise tour to the housing apartments on campus and to the famous library.
The Transfer Hour
Every day, Monday- Thursday day and evening students in the Fireside Dining Room will have an hour of learning about Transfer through a video montage. Students will be introduced to Transfer Center services and programs and will watch college tour videos- learning about a variety of different campuses, in state, out of state, public and private.
Check it out on:
• Mondays and Wednesdays 12:00-1:00 pm and 4:30-5:30pm
• Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00-12:00 and 4:30-5:30pm
The idea of the Transfer Hour came from the Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee last Fall. The Committee thought it would be a way of increasing Transfer Culture and introducing new campuses and opportunities to students. This is one of the many ideas and priorities that he Committee came up with!
Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee wraps up Spring semester meeting and prepares for next year!
In an effort to increase our Transfer Culture, the Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee has 3 main priorities they identified:
• Outreach and Promotion
• Cross-Division Collaboration
• Creating student-centered Transfer Pathways “Transfer Pods”
Here are some highlights of the implementation of these ideas:
• The Transfer Center hosted 3 College tours – UC Davis, CSU East Bay and San Jose State reaching over 100 students!
• The Transfer Hour was debuted – check it out in the Fireside Dining Hall!
• The best yet Alma Mater Day – including the WHOLE counseling Division showing up in Alma Mater wear (YES, that’s a challenge to ALL divisions in the future!)
• Faculty signed up for a regular “transfer slide” so that they can display/announce information on upcoming transfer related events and workshops at the beginning of class
• Presentations on the work of the Advisory Committee were made to all Divisions, the Academic and Classified Senates, the BSI Committee, and the Student Services and Instructional Leadership Teams creating opportunity for feedback and further cross-division collaboration
• Skyline College has begun the process of collecting both qualitative and quantitative data from SFSU, UCD and CSUEB our major feeder campuses for a PRIE Data project for 2014-2015
• The SMT Division Faculty and Transfer Center collaborated to submit a PIF to pilot a ‘Transfer Pod’ for STEM majors, where all students who are STEM majors would get all transfer support and services, including access to all STEM discipline faculty, tutoring, counseling and additional transfer specific workshops in a STEM Center. If granted, this would be pilot for future ‘Transfer Pods’.
• Set the goal to transfer 337 students for the CSU, 88 students for the UC, 425 total as a benchmark.
Looking forward
The Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee will continue to meet next year. The focus of the year will be to continue the efforts and priorities of this year, to continue to grow our campus-wide transfer culture and to engage our students around how to best support them to transfer. Following the Completion by Design Model, we hope to engage students at the different phases of a student’s education, in this case, Entry, Progress and Completion. The PRIE Office will begin its’ qualitative data project with our key university partners and the results will help inform our work for future years. If you are interested in joining the Transfer Initiative Advisory Committee, please contact Suzanne Poma at pomas@smccd.edu.
Article by Suzanne Poma and Michele Haggar
Photos by Suzanne Poma and Michele Haggar
