Keys to Community College Success: COVID-19 Success Updates and Coaching Included

By Carol Carter and Sarah Kravits

For First Year Experience, Student Success, and Introduction to College courses for students attending two year programs.





Keys to Community College Success sets the standard for connecting academic success to success beyond school, showing students how to apply strategies within college, career, and life. This Eighth edition retains Keys' tried-and-true emphasis on thinking skills and problem solving, re-imagined with two goals in mind: One, a risk and reward framework that reflects the demands today's students face, and two, a focus on student experience specific to two-year schools with a more extensive research base and increased metacognition, helping students get a degree, get skills, or work toward a transfer.





Keys to Community College Success helps students take ownership, develop academic and transferable skills, and show the results of commitment and action so they are well equipped with the concentration, commitment, focus, and persistence necessary to succeed.





Keys to Community College Success provides the established KEYS set of tools for success —an understanding of how coursework connects to career and life goal achievement, and analytical, creative, and practical thinking coverage that empowers a range of cognitive ability. This content provides:

• COVID-19 Update: College students in 2020 need relevant information during the unprecedented time of COVID-19. This update of Keys to Community College Success includes up-to-the minute information on digital and distributed learning strategies and practical tips on resilience, persistence, purpose, and strength.





• College Connection to Career and Life Goals: Infused with a focus on risk and reward, showing that the reward of success in the modern world demands a risk of vision and persistent effort over time. It raises the bar to show students that they must risk action to grow, thrive, and contribute in order to make their college investment pay off in gainful employment, meaningful work, and community involvement.





• Thinking Skills coverage: Comprehensive content with research references lend credibility and perspective to concepts, targeted exercises that explore personally relevant situations in context, and sustained focus throughout each topic.





• Tailored to the Two Year Program experience: Acknowledges global economic change and instability and hones in on student concerns about employability skills and debt management so the two-year college experience is framed in practical, work-relevant ways with consideration toward transfer students as well. New coverage of resources, topics, and research support concepts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeBound
• Release date: Jun 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781735189116

Carol Carter

Carol Carter has spent her entire career in the business world, where she has a track record of success in corporate America, entrepreneurship, and non-profit. Her student success work is driven by firsthand knowledge of what employers expect and demand from today’s graduates. As President of LifeBound, an academic and career coaching company for educators, her team teaches learning, interpersonal, and career skills to students and trains and certifies adults in academic coaching skills and facilitating in hybrid, virtual, and in-person environments. Carol speaks on educational topics nationally and internationally and has been a guest in 57 countries. In 2014, she founded and funded GlobalMindED, a 501(c)3 organization that works to create a capable, diverse talent pipeline, connecting First Gen to college, students of color, and other underrepresented populations to employment success and economic freedom. Carol is a co-author on many books including the Keys to Success series as well as Keys to Business Communication and the Career Tool Kit. She has also published a series of books on social/emotional and career development for K-12 students through LifeBound, including Dollars and Sense: How To Be Smart About Money and Majoring In the Rest of Your Life: Career Secrets for College Students. Carol is the 2020 winner of the Beta Gamma Sigma International Honoree Award in conjunction with AACSB and member business schools around the U.S. and the world.

Book preview

The Rewards of College

TAKING RISKS THAT MOVE YOU TOWARD SUCCESS

What Would You Risk? Dr. J. Raider Estrada

THINK ABOUT THIS SITUATION AS YOU READ, AND CONSIDER WHAT ACTION YOU WOULD TAKE.

THIS CHAPTER JUMP-STARTS YOUR ENTRY INTO THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE, WITH INFORMATION ON HOW TO MAKE THE TRANSITION AND GATHER THE INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESS.

J. Raider Estrada’s childhood in Los Angeles was defined by challenges. His parents separated when he was 10, and his neighborhood was dominated by gang culture. He grew close to an older boy named Rudy who belonged to one of the local gangs. One day as he and Rudy walked down the street, members of a rival gang drove up, jumped out of the car, and fatally stabbed Rudy on the spot. Raider, age 12 at the time, could only hold his best friend and watch him die.

This experience unleashed rage in Raider that he was unable to control. He joined the gang to which Rudy had belonged and participated in gang violence. He was repeatedly arrested for assault and battery. He went through several stints in juvenile hall and on probation, and he eventually lived in a group home for over a year. However, none of these interventions kept him from continuing to act violently on behalf of the gang.

When his stepmother discovered his gun and called the police, she disrupted Raider’s plan to avenge the deaths of several fellow gang members. After two weeks of hiding out, he risked going to the police on his own volition. This time the intervention was different. He went to a program called Rite of Passage in the heart of the Nevada desert, where he found encouragement and motivation. A devoted teacher who worked with Raider sparked his desire to learn, which led to his earning a high school diploma, and a counselor helped him apply to college. He was admitted to Lassen College and started classes two days after leaving Rite of Passage. Now a new challenge loomed: How could Raider, as a former gang member with a history of failure and violence, earn the reward of a successful college career?

To be continued …

IN THIS TEXT, YOU WILL MEET PEOPLE LIKE RAIDER WHO HAVE TAKEN RISKS THAT HAVE HELPED THEM ACHIEVE IMPORTANT GOALS. WHETHER YOU HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON WITH THESE PEOPLE OR NOT, THEY WILL EXPAND YOUR PERSPECTIVE AND INSPIRE YOU TO MOVE AHEAD ON YOUR OWN PATH. YOU’LL LEARN MORE ABOUT RAIDER, AND THE REWARD RESULTING FROM HIS ACTIONS, WITHIN THE CHAPTER.

How Ready Are You to Risk Effort for the Rewards of College?

For each statement, fill in the number that best describes how often it applies to you.

1 = never     2 = seldom     3 = sometimes     4 = often     5 = always

Each of the topics in these statements is covered in this chapter. Note those statements for which you filled in a 3 or lower. Skim the chapter to see where those topics appear, and pay special attention to them as you read, learn, and apply new strategies.

REMEMBER: NO MATTER HOW PREPARED YOU ARE TO SUCCEED IN COLLEGE, YOU CAN IMPROVE WITH EFFORT AND PRACTICE.

WHY IS COLLEGE A RISK, AND

what reward does it offer?

Think about the word risk. What, specifically, comes to mind? There are two different ways to think about risk. One involves risky behavior—impulsive decisions made with little or no forethought—such as substance abuse, unsafe sex, or breaking the law. The other concept is one of deliberate risk calculated to bring reward. Examples of this kind of productive risk include buying shares of stock in a new company or serving in the combat division of the military. This is the concept of risk that will take focus in this text—the one that will give you the power to achieve the rewards that are meaningful to