Guided Pathways
Student Team Updates

Las Positas College Guided Pathways hires student assistants to be an integral part of the design and implementation process. Together, we work collaboratively to include students from across our campus in everything we do.

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Student Team Updates

Each month, our student team engaged in the Guided Pathway work shares what is happening in Guided Pathways and how it affects their student experience.

5/2021 - Reflections from the Semester

Samantha Lie

Being part of the student team in Guided Pathways has been one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. What I liked the most about working as a student assistant is being able to provide input based on my student perspective. In addition, I have gotten to meet many instructors and staff at LPC and I feel like this experience has made me more familiar with the campus and the college environment as a whole. Among the many people I have met, I was also introduced to a wonderful student team. Even though we were not able to meet in person, I have felt a sense of belonging not only to the team but to the campus as well. Everyone in Guided Pathways is very friendly and you can tell that they appreciate our student opinions when we share out at meetings and in workgroups. I want to give a huge shout out to Kristy Woods, our student team leader who has always been supportive and appreciative of our student voice, I am so grateful to have known you! I am looking forward to the many marvelous outcome of Guided Pathways, but especially what Success Teams will look like at LPC in the future.

Brittanie North

Being on the Guided Pathways Student Team has been an exciting, and memorable experience. I truly appreciate the opportunity to share innovative ideas and my personal experience as a student at Las Positas College. I am grateful to have worked with Kristy Woods and all the wonderful people who have put forth time, effort, and their heart to putting equity at the center of everything they do. We were able to accomplish most action items during this past academic year, despite being in a global pandemic. In thinking of the next student team and academic year, what I Iook forward to the most is the development and execution of Student Success Teams; where there is more in-depth, first-hand distribution of essential information tailored to the students. My hope for the next student team is they are able to continue to share their insight and experience, as well as the areas of improvements they see that can be addressed for growth in order to better assist our students. I am truly honored to have been a part of this awe-inspiring team and project.

Rhea Panchal

Guided Pathways has been such a wonderful wholesome experience. I feel our teamwork truly helped accomplish our goals for the “Year of Action.” Since applying for the position as a student assistant with Guided Pathways, I have learned so much from my team. Kristy Woods has been such a phenomenal leader and mentor; she continuously brings cheer and optimism to our team meetings and committee workgroups. This past academic year was the first time Guided Pathways had a student team, and I am so glad I got to be a part of such a fantastic group and initiative. In reflecting on the past year, what I loved about this job the most was bringing student viewpoints; it gave me the feeling of being heard on campus. It allowed me to develop my knowledge of the functions behind the scenes and share my passion for the education system. I genuinely believe that the future student team will enjoy their role with this incredible group of people.

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2/2021 – Sharing Our Work Across Campus

The Student Team was honored to author an article about the amazing collaborative work being done in Guided Pathways for the President's Newsletter!

Embracing Equity

Danielle Bañuelos, Samantha Lie, Brittanie North, Rhea Panchal

What started three years ago with sticky notes and starbursts at FLEX Day, with passionate LPC employees across campus wanting to make a difference for our students, has flourished into Las Positas enthusiastically joining the national Guided Pathways Project. For those that are not familiar, Guided Pathways, in short, is a California Community College reform that seeks to break down the barriers to success and increase the number of students who earn community college credentials. Each college participating in this wonderful movement takes the foundation of the project (its four pillars) and decides what Guided Pathways looks like on their campus. Las Positas College believes that the heart of our Guided Pathways work is the diverse student body we serve. The mission of Guided Pathways on our campus is to infuse equity into every aspect of the college experience and provide students with intentional support by offering opportunities for them to discover, clarify, and enter their “pathway,” and persist with support in achieving their academic and career goals.

We are proud to share that we are in our third year of this work and have made incredible strides in moving each aspect forward. In what we affectionately call our year of action, we would like to share some initiative updates from each pillar.

Pillar 1: Clarifying the Pathway work has engaged in researching various career exploration platforms to implement on campus, ultimately deciding on Career Coach which went live March 1st. Career Coach is a wonderful resource for students to be able to explore various career opportunities and even offers undecided students the ability to take an assessment to find out where to begin their exploration. Career Coach will provide all students with resume building supports, including assistance for Veterans in translating their skills into marketable experience.  In conjunction with Career Coach, this initiative team is working on rolling out Program Mapper soon which will visually illustrate to students a program “map” detailing which courses to take in a recommended order, linked to our program student learning outcomes.

Pillar 2: Entering the Pathway workgroup has done a fabulous job with streamlining our onboarding process, to be implemented in time for Fall enrollment. Originally everyone that enrolled into the college had the same items to complete, but this initiative team has researched and identified six different student types and then created personalized steps to success for each. In addition, with the support of our President, we are happy to share that we will have a virtual Welcome Center coming soon, where a live person will virtually greet students to the college and answer any questions they might have.

Pillar 3: Staying on the Pathway has a grassroots project to increase persistence in our classes.  This Persistence Project had an overwhelming response of about 40+ faculty and classified members volunteering to join their Cohort 1. This initiative team has truly done incredible work that speaks to keeping students persisting down their path and increasing the retention rate of students. Some of the actions that have been implemented are sending students a welcome letter prior to the course beginning, revising syllabi to be equity minded and include high expectations in a friendly manner, learning the names of students and encouraging students to learn the names of their peers, providing constructive feedback on assignments, holding one-on-one introductory meetings in addition to regular weekly office hours, familiarizing students with campus support resources, reaching out to students that are struggling and offering them support, and encouraging students to complete an associate’s degree or certificate of achievement.

Pillar 4: Ensuring Learning is in the foundational stage, with key work accomplished this year and to be continued in the next two.  Adopted this year campus wide, LPC now has seven areas of interest.  Development of these heavily relied on the student focus groups, facilitated by us, the Guided Pathways Student Team.  As a college we plan to implement in these areas student success teams, ensuring that all of our students are supported in achieving their academic and career goals.  As students, we are excited about the success teams including peer mentors. The intent is that these success teams will provide equitable opportunities and targeted support for students within each pathway so they can confidently achieve their academic and career goals.

The work being accomplished is absolutely remarkable and is truly an us thing. As students this work has been exciting to be a part of the change that is occuring at Las Positas!  For more information, or to get involved with Guided Pathways at Las Positas College, please visit our website at http://www.laspositascollege.edu/gp

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12/2020 – What An Incredible Semester!

Rhea Panchal - Mission Statement and Career Exploration

This year was a "Year of Action" for Guided Pathways and the team was able to accomplish a lot this semester by working on the Mission Statement, Program Groupings for Program Mapper, and various other projects to enhance the student experience. The Guided Pathways student team was introduced to the career exploration project this month. This will be an important project as career planning plays a vital role for new students and continuing Las Positas students as it will show the students the available career options, prepare them to reach that career goal, and improve their academic performance.

This month, the student team reviewed two career exploration platforms - Career Coach for California Community Colleges and VitaNavis. We completed the career assessments to get an understanding of the website. We reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of the two career websites. The feedback will later be reevaluated and discussed by the Career and Transfer Project Faculty Coordinators. Our student feedback and the discussions through the Steering Committee will help bring the best possible Career Exploration Services for Las Positas students.

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11/2020 – Progress, Progress, Progress

Danielle Bañuelos - The Heart of Guided Pathways

After being introduced to Guided Pathways at the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester, I was constantly hearing, “This is our year of action!” and what a year of action this has been. Among the many exciting topics being discussed and great progress being made on our pillar initiatives to improve the student experience on our campus, one conversation was especially meaningful to me: the conversation about our Guided Pathways Mission Statement. During the Steering Committee meeting held in October we got together to collaboratively share ideas and thoughts about what the Mission Statement should include. There were a great number of ideas shared and in this month’s meeting we are dedicated to collaborating again to finalize thoughts on what the statement should be comprised of. Although the work we do in Guided Pathways is significant in and of itself, it is even more exciting that we will have a Mission Statement to thoughtfully reflect to anyone who comes across it why we do the work we do.

Samantha Lie - Student Panels

This month, the Guided Pathways student team have been doing a lot of interesting projects, and of them is hosting Student Panels. We spread words out to instructors, classmates, and clubs to join us in one of our meetings to learn more about Guided Pathways. Not only did we introduce what Guided Pathways is, and what our work is, we also asked their opinions about the program groupings that have been a topic of Guided Pathways team meetings. We had a great discussion and we even did some polls, which were very interesting to see the tight results. The purpose of the Student Panels is to let more students know about Guided Pathways, and to have opinions from students’ perspective, because, again, Guided Pathways’ work is to enhance students’ experience, so their voice is crucial for us. I look forward to our upcoming student panels, and to get more student’s involvement in our projects!

Brittanie North - Student Panels and Program Groups

In November of 2020, Guided Pathways was finally able to launch the student panels and surveys! A lot of extensive thought, hard work and effort went into creating these platforms. The purpose of these forums with the student body was to address the various subject groupings, clear and informative titles as well as the design of Las Positas Colleges (LPC) program mapper website. We were able to model the student panels after the surveys, so that the information presented would strongly correlate and be concise. The times and dates offered were determined thereafter. We were able to inreach LPC students through means of emailing classmates, clubs on campus, and instructors. The overall experience of being immersed with other students expressing their interpretation of the aforementioned items above, was thrilling and illuminating. The discussions from the students gave us more insight on how they thought. In short we were able to examine the point of view from a fraction of the student body.  Something we learned through trial and error, was that not enough students know of the importance of their zonemail account, let alone how to access it. In addition to navigating Zoom’s technological systems, in regards to saving polling data electronically. And lastly, the distribution of information was also brought to our attention. How can we reach more students, and encourage them participation in the process of designing new academic pathways? Whether it be through surveys or more student panels.

Rhea Panchal - A Busy November

November has been an excellent month for Guided Pathways. Guided Pathways is working collaboratively with students, clubs, and student government to receive their feedback for Program Mapper.  I loved the Guided Pathways decision to involve students and different committees from the Las Positas campus as it has allowed us to consider and analyze everybody’s opinions and frame a better plan suitable for all the students at Las Positas. Feedback has allowed this program to improve student experience every step of our way and involve everybody to bring the best possible plan for our college. With everybody’s feedback and ongoing discussions, Guided Pathways is progressing in the right direction this month, and we are very excited to work on the Program Groupings for Program Mapper. Program Groupings for the Mapper plays a crucial role as it will allow students to explore different areas of careers and studies, enabling them to find their perfect fit.

I am very excited about Guided Pathways and the change it will bring in the way students explore their academic and career choices when they come to Las Positas. I have hope that this program will bring a drastic change in our college’s career planning and allow students to have a clear and concise pathway for their education journey at Las Positas.

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10/2020 – Off and Running!

Danielle Bañuelos - October at a Glance 

October was a busy and exhilarating 31 days! What excites me most about the work Guided Pathways has accomplished this past month is the number of quality conversations that have taken place to contribute to future student's experience and their success here at Las Positas College. From discussions on Flex Day about different career exploration platforms to conversations about career and academic programs to talks about streamlining the application process and brainstorming ways to keep students persisting down their pathway, the amount of teamwork and sharing of thoughts and ideas has been incredible! I am looking forward to sharing our work with students and getting their feedback on our efforts this upcoming month.

Brittanie North - Career Exploration

During the Flex Day meeting; staff, faculty and students were able to review what other colleges, Chaffey and Bakersfield, were able to incorporate into their institution for career exploration. Some of the programs that were discussed were Program Mapper, VitaNavis, Career Coach and the Gainful Employment Disclosure section. These sites had compelling attributes that allowed students to be informed and make the best decisions from the information presented. The students would be allowed to see a career outlook, job summaries, details, and an educational description that covered some of the skills needed to be qualified for employment. Some additions to these programs discussed was a direct link to Los Positas College showing the degrees and or certificates offered to help students with their choice of major. Along with a section that funnels students into internships and jobs that help build their resumes. The programs Vita Navis and Career Coach track what careers are growing and the ones that are on the decline which reflect the industry to keep students up to date . Another potential addition also be professional conferences that allow students to meet the professionals in the industries to network, for example SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science) which are geared towards STEM majors and professionals.

Samantha Lie - Importance of Student Voices

I really enjoy working with the Guided Pathways team because not only do we think about the strategies for students’ success, but we also want to make sure that our decision is based on what the students need and prefer. Students’ voice is our key in determining our work. We met with the Student Government this month and we look forward to many more discussions with them as well as other students.

Rhea Panchal - Program Mapper

When I joined Las Positas, the main challenge was finding the right major and career for my interests. Every student needs proper guidance and information for their major when registering for college classes. The program mapper can be a very efficient resource for everyone. Program Mapper is a tool that will allow students to make their career exploration process more fun and interactive. Program Mapper will allow all the incoming and existing students to complete the process by giving them all the resources in one place, from career information to a suggested course sequence. I love that this tool will make it so convenient for everyone to research different fields of studies to find the right fit.