Midterm grades were due early in the day on Wednesday, Oct. 7, which means students will be able to get a sense of how they are doing in class and plan how they want to approach the second half of the semester to achieve their academic goals.

Hatters who find themselves falling behind need not worry, because Stetson provides plenty of resources to get them back on track — including the Midterm Success Workshop hosted by Academic Success. The workshop is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 12, at 5 p.m. in the Hollis Family Student Success Center on the second floor of the duPont Ball Library.

“The Midterm Success Workshop is mostly geared towards students who might be falling behind in their classes,” said Steven Carrillo, MPA, coordinator of advising support at the Academic Success Center. “We reach out to students who are struggling with classes and with midterm grades that were lower than they should be, but the workshop is open for any student to come in. We offer this workshop to help students explore different options — not just improving study habits, tutoring availability and sharing our services, but also, if worse comes to worst, options for dropping a class, options for taking incompletes, using pass/fail and using course exclusions.”

Through the Student Success Collaborative system on MyStetson, where students can check whether they are making satisfactory progress on the courses they are taking, faculty and staff can flag students who are on their way to receiving failing grades. Then, dedicated Academic Success staff initiate outreach to connect these students with available resources such as success coaching, tutoring and learning tools. 

“We do a lot of hands-on connections and communications with our students to try to get them to come in so they don’t contact us two weeks before the end of the semester saying, ‘Oh, I wish I got tutoring. I wish I got success coaching,’” commented Carrillo.

A semesterly event, the Midterm Success Workshop is a great opportunity for students to learn about academic policies that can help prevent their GPAs from plummeting. For instance, every Stetson student can request up to two Pass/Fail elections during their college career. While there are some restrictions — the Pass/Fail option cannot be used for major, minor or foundation courses — and the request must be filed before set deadlines, it can be used for electives, allowing students to earn credit toward their graduation requirement without impacting their GPA.

Noting that not all students know about such options that can be used strategically to avoid triggering academic warnings or suspensions, Carrillo added that the upcoming workshop will also cover beginner study strategies such as the Cornell note taking system and the Pomodoro technique, as well as active recall techniques like the Leitner system and interleaving, to help students actively engage with learning materials.

He said, “A lot of students are almost afraid to ask for help until the very end, and that’s something we’re actively trying to combat. We’re trying to make sure students are okay coming to us and saying, ‘Hey, I’m not doing so well in class,’ because we’re not here to reprimand them in any way. We’re here to say, ‘Okay, that’s fine. Things happen. How can we help you get back on track?”

–Siyon Kim