First Year Experience

To combat lower graduation rates, KSU will focus on four initiatives aimed at supporting new students.

1. The President’s Focused Learner Program

The President’s Focused Learner Program (PFL) is a KSU initiative seeking to assist incoming students at risk of “Murky Middle” GPAs with their ability to navigate the academic and personal well-being factors often necessary for a student’s academic success. The PFL Program spans all majors at KSU.

KSU’s “Starting Blocks” project launched in Fall 2024.  Block scheduling serves multiple purposes, all designed to enhance the academic experience and support student success. It streamlines the registration process for easier enrollment, ensuring students make appropriate selections of courses, including introductory English and math, during their first semester. It helps minimize potential credit loss if students change majors, and it provides students with the optimal opportunity to register for a full-time (15 credit hour) schedule.

FIRE 1000 ("Freshmen Introduction to Reasoning Essentials") is a first-year course that stimulates students' academic self-efficacy, depth of intellectual inquiry, and problem-solving skills. This is done through research and reflection to understand themselves better, their purpose, and the campus community. FIRE 1000 was launched in 2017 and is required at GSC for all new and transfer students under 13 credit hours.

In freshman orientation classes each 1st-year student will be required to complete an assignment designed to encourage the use of stepping blocks data.  Based on an academic major of interest, students will research common jobs associated with the major as well as the job market and the salaries associated with these positions.

Create success networks that connect students with peer support, mentors, tutors, advisors, and counselors that focus on the specific needs of various student populations.

Through a US Department of Education grant, GGC launched a STEM Living Learning Community (LLC) specifically for Informational Technology (IT) and Health Science (HS) programs that offers competitive housing awards and academic and career readiness support for two cohorts of 16 students pursuing these degrees each year.  Our LLC program builds on GGC’s record of successfully preparing STEM students by providing intensive academic support, proactive advising, career planning, and high impact practices such as undergraduate research opportunities.

Learning Communities are a high-impact practice that help students establish relationships while learning in three linked classes that are relevant to their meta-major/academic focus area: Business (BUSI); Education (EDUC); Health Professions (HEPR); Humanities and Arts (HUAR); Information Technology (ITEC); Social Sciences (SOSC); or Science, Technology and Math (STEM). We aim to scale first-year LCs so all new full-time first-year students enroll in an LC by an opt-out approach.

The First Year Experience is one of three embedded experiences that is built into the GC curriculum. To “Complete your journey,” for First Year Experience, students need to complete their GCSU 0001 (FYAS) and GC1Y courses.

EGSC is seeking to improve the rate at which students complete the English composition series and required math course within their first 30 hours of coursework. We understand that failure to complete these vital and foundational courses in the early portion of a student’s education journey can hinder the student by blocking courses that need the prerequisite and by limiting the number of choices a student has available to choose from during each successive registration period.

The Bobcat Summer Leadership Program (BSLP) is open to all first-time full-time freshmen planning to attend East Georgia State College immediately after high school. The program is designed to provide the student with an opportunity to build a strong academic foundation to ease the transition from high school to college. In addition to taking courses for credit toward their degree, the student will connect with support services and engage in a range of leadership development activities.