Modern Blueprint for College and Career Success
This text is a good option for first-year experience courses. The text is comprised of components that are to be expected, such as the chapters on motivation, growth mindset, goal setting, and time management. What makes this text noteworthy is that it includes units on career development and financial literacy. In the high school to college transition, today’s college students often express a desire to learn about “adulting.” This text discusses the importance of finances (a major aspect of “adulting”) in a way that is helpful. The first-year experience courses at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley have evolved to emphasize career planning. The unit on career development adds value to the text. The units on self-management and financial literacy end with chapters that cover cultural influences related to the respective topics, which was interesting. The last chapter in the financial literacy unit is not expansive, but the last chapter in the self-management unit does a good job of discussing how time is perceived (“time is money” and “wasted time”).
The text is largely accurate. The chapters related to academic success strategies and time management present concepts that have held up over time. It is a plus to ground discussion in theory (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in Chapter 2, Bloom’s Taxonomy in Chapter 5, human development in Chapter 41). The career development unit goes well beyond just aptitude tests, which may be what most immediately comes to mind for students in conversations about careers. The text presents career as going hand in hand with values, interests, personality, and skills (VIPS). The text encourages self-reflection, which is essential to career development. The text reinforces the idea that career planning takes time and is not a process that should take place only during the senior year of college.
Included in the name of the text is “Modern Blueprint,” and the text is introduced as a “post pandemic” guide for students. Good examples of this relevancy can be found in the chapters on time management and procrastination, social media and mental health, and social development. Procrastination has been identified as a major concern for students in more recent first-year cohorts. The text reinforces the idea that time management is a skill that can be acquired and that learning to manage one’s time is essential to managing self. More recent cohorts of first-year students have been described as much more willing to talk openly about mental health and destigmatize the topic. The text provides starting points for both students and instructors on this important topic. The unit on social development, which includes chapters on building relationships in college and interpersonal skills, adds value to the text, especially considering that more recent cohorts of first-year students spent a not insignificant part of their formative years participating in school virtually because of a global pandemic.
The text is easy to understand. Sections within chapters are consumable. The sections do not overly complicate concepts. Chapters within units complement each other. The text makes good use of visuals to represent ideas.
The text is mostly consistent. The text has many contributors; it is understandable that there may be differences across writings. Some chapters are shorter than others. The curator acknowledges that the text is a work in progress. Ultimately, though, the contributors know their audience, and their shared goal of providing guidance to students for a successful college experience is accomplished.
One of the best features of the text is its modules. It is syllabus-friendly. For instructors who have a preferred text on college success, it is worth exploring how the career development unit in this text could be incorporated into assigned readings.
The text is well organized. The opening unit is about strategies for academic success, which are essential to the design of first-year experience courses. It is a plus that time management is a major topic across multiple chapters in a unit, as opposed to being lumped in within another unit. Time management for college students is about much more than allocating appropriate amounts of time to attending class and studying. The organization of the second unit helps illustrate that managing time is part of the larger responsibility of managing self, which also involves setting goals and monitoring progress toward achieving those goals. Additionally, the unit on health and wellness goes beyond just physical health and places importance on the topic of mental health—all of which is part of the bigger picture of wellness of the whole person. Across all units, sections are made clear by subheadings.
The units/modules are easy to navigate. There is a search function, and quick searches of key terms seem to indicate that search results are organized by most to least relevant. The chapters could benefit from clear estimated times it would take to complete the reading. When accessing the online text in a desktop browser, there are links at the bottom that allow the reader to move easily between previous and next chapters.
The text does not have major grammatical errors.
The text aims to be culturally relevant throughout the units, as appropriate. Unit 5 includes many of the topics one would expect from an equity and inclusion lens. Instructors may give thought to what type of support there is in their environments to include these topics in their course.