First Year Experience

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 cornerstone of Gordon State College’s first-year experience and a vital component of the institution’s student success ecosystem. Launched in 2017, FIRE 1000 is a required course for all new and transfer students entering with fewer than 13 credit hours. The course is designed to build the habits of mind, self-awareness, and critical reasoning skills that promote long-term academic success, persistence, and personal growth.

The Faculty Mentor Program at Gordon State College is a cornerstone of the institution’s student success and retention initiatives, designed to provide holistic, sustained support for first-year students as they transition into college life. The program pairs first-year students—those with fewer than 30 credit hours—with faculty mentors in their major or area of academic interest. These mentors offer professional and career guidance, encouragement, and meaningful connections to campus resources, complementing the proactive support of the College’s professional academic advisors.

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.

Every incoming freshman is being trained on the use of the Student Educational Planner (SEP) in Degree Works in their UNIV 1000 the GSW Experience, first-years seminar course. Creating and submitting a registration plan is an assignment in all sections of UNIV 1000.

Student Learning Communities consist of courses in which a common theme or themes are utilized to create opportunities for students to explore these themes in more depth and see how the theme (s) crosses different disciplines. In addition, SLCs encourage a sense of belonging and student engagement since students may share two or more courses together which focus on the same theme.

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 part 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.

As part of the consolidation with Georgia Southern University (GS), an EGSC/GS team is proposing to replace EGSC’s 1 credit hour CATS 1101 Critical and Academic Thinking for Success freshmen orientation course with two 1 credit hour courses, as presented below along with their draft student learning outcomes (SLOs):

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.

The Roadrunner Scholars is a residential and immersive summer bridge program designed for students requiring learning support math and English.  In this six-week program, students were enrolled in both learning support math and English as well as their credit course counterparts, and the Perspectives seminar. Roadrunner Scholars were provided tutoring assistance, peer education, development opportunities, as well as social activities.  All aspects of the program were provided at no cost to the student through scholarships offered by our Dalton State Foundation.  Students were invited to app