By Catherine Gonzalez
Features Editor
Housed in Roscoe West Hall, the Center for Student Success is home to resources intended to assist students with getting through college smoothly.
“We offer academic advising, which helps students with their self-skills, such as time-management, study skills [and] note-taking,” said Chinasa Thorpe, a student support coordinator and the liaison to undesignated transitional students.
The Center for Student Success offers both in-person and virtual services to all students for free.
“Our hours are on our Instagram, @tcnjcss, [where] we make a lot of different flyers and Instagram posts with tips and tricks for really just how to be the best overall student,” said senior deaf and hard of hearing, elementary education and integrative STEM education major Brooke Wachter, a peer academic coach at the College. “[Students] can come in at any time that we are available and come meet with us, no appointment necessary.”
The Center for Student Success also works closely with students in specific cohorts, such as transfer students and pathway students.
“Pathway students are non-matriculated students, and they were previously before this year known as provisional students,” explained junior kinesiology and health science major and peer academic coach Kira Govindaraju. “They pretty much take an IDS (Interdisciplinary Studies) class to matriculate into [the College].”
Govindaraju, who was once in the Pathway Program herself, met the peer academic coaches while in the program and applied to become one in her sophomore year.
“After I matriculated into the program, I ended up working as a peer academic coach,” Govindaraju said.
Peer academic coaches assist students of any major with class and scheduling techniques.
“I help with note-taking skills, study skills, time-management skills, registering for courses, Add/Drop/Swap, how to prepare for your advising meetings–all those types of things,” Wachter said. “Really supplying academic support in areas that’s not content-related.”
The College’s Tutoring Center, which does provide content-related support and is also housed in Roscoe West Hall, is not a service provided by the Center for Student Success.
“I thought [the Center for Student Success] was the Tutoring Center,” said sophomore interactive multimedia major Carolyn McDonough.
Thorpe said that CSS is frequently confused with the Tutoring Center. “We do not help with the content area. We just help with the self-skills.”
Despite their being different services, they do not work entirely independently of one another, nor do they work entirely independently of the Accessibility Resource Center.
“We work together, we collab a lot, we share a lot of the same students,” explained Thorpe.
Thorpe, who started working in her particular office in 2018, focuses on assisting Undesignated Transitional Students.
“[They] are students who’ve been dismissed from their major,” said Thorpe. “I provide a lot of tips and tools, I provide them with comfort, I provide them with hope so that they can pass or find the major that is particularly for them, and that’s going to satisfy them, and that’s going to bring them happiness at the end.”
Thorpe finds it particularly fulfilling when students wish to continue working with the Center for Student Success beyond when they are required to.
“Even though they have their own school or they have their own faculty advisor, they still come back for support,” said Thorpe.
Govindaraju finds similar fulfillment in working with students.
“The biggest love I have for this job is seeing the kind of impact you could have first-hand,” Govindaraju said. “These students come in [and] are a little nervous to talk to you and nervous to ask questions, but it feels good to build that friendship and build that relationship as a peer academic coach and a student.”
Wachter now enjoys providing students with that same guidance.
“My favorite part of being a peer academic coach is honestly just seeing the progress a student can make within the 30 minutes of talking with them,” said Wachter. “Giving students that extra help that they need [and] being able to have them walk away with a smile on their face saying, ‘I feel supported, I feel like I’m walking away with more information,’ is everything for me.”
