ALS 1400 - CALS LAB: Landing and Becoming

Fall. 1 credit. Student option grading (no audit).

Permission of instructor required. Enrollment limited to: students in the CALS peer mentor program. Email Rhonda Todd at rrt52@cornell.edu for more information on peer mentoring.

S. Byrne, M. Puzas Kessen, R. Todd.

This course will help new students find their footing to transition into the CALS community. We will provide information and experiences that are critical to student success that might otherwise be missed or not explicitly shared. Topics include your success team, preparing for class, writing papers, finding support groups, and designing your undergraduate experience to ensure you are successful, personally, academically, and professionally. In this course you will be working with upper-class peer mentors to unpack the wide variety of skills needed to find your footing at Cornell and be positioned to grow, learn, and realize your academic potential. Each Friday afternoon, we will meet for 50 minutes to bridge connections, have rousing facilitated discussions, make meaning through reflections, and see places on campus field trips– all with the unavoidable side effect of making community and building friendships.

Students will expand on their current skillset to further develop their communication skills (listening, email best practices), help-seeking behavior (know when to ask and who to find), academic skills (study habits, tutoring, and exam preparation), and success skills (finding community, contributing to a caring community, extra-curriculars, and growth mindset).

Outcome 1: Identify members of their success network which is comprised of: faculty advisor(s), department coordinator(s), CALS Student Services, etc.

Outcome 2: Optimally leverage campus and course resources (ex. LSC, SCL’s Identity Resources, TAs, office hours, study groups, extra problem sets) to improve their college and classroom experiences.