Second of four stories
By Rick Vacek | February 18, 2025
Any credible list of life’s most challenging transitions would have to include high school senior to college freshman.
Its difficulty is verified regularly in the Student Success Center, the tutoring hub of The University of Texas at Dallas. Freshmen who seek academic help in the SSC often were tutors just one year earlier.
“We build back up their confidence,” said Dr. Julie Murphy, the SSC’s Senior Director. “They do know how to study. They do know the information. They just need someone to walk with them and remind them and help them work a problem and show them they can be successful, and then they can do the rest.
“We explain to them, ‘It’s not the content. It’s the speed at which the content is delivered.’ In high school, you have the whole year. Here, you have the semester.”
That’s why Academic Success Coaching (ASC) is such an important SSC program for so many first-year students. Time management and avoiding procrastination and burnout are frequently addressed, but there’s more.
“Habits is a big part of it, but I would say a bigger element of it is access to resources,” said junior Tiffany Taylor, who manages the ASC’s Peer Leaders. “A lot of these students have the drive and the motivation to do these things, and they just genuinely have never been taught it.
“It was never something that was covered in their high school classes. No one briefed them when they got to college. I’ve introduced students to office hours. They’ve come to me saying they wanted to connect with their professor and had a list of questions but didn’t know how to go about it. I said, ‘We have a system for that!’”
Taylor knows the feeling. Just two years ago, the psychology/child learning and development major received the same ASC coaching.
“The biggest reason I see people come in is the year of transitioning from assignment-based grades to exam-based grades,” she said. “The success coach was super helpful with that and helped me make a plan for it.”
Now her plan is to become an administrator in higher education, and she credits the SSC for inspiring that goal.
“I am super passionate about education,” she said. “The SSC has helped me find peers and supervisors who share that passion.”
The intimidation of first-year college classes might be exceeded only by the absolute terror so many freshmen feel when they try to present their thoughts in a speech or paper.
The CommLab and Writing Center can help them find their voice.
“More people in the United States are scared of public speaking than dying,” said senior Maya Langendorf, Team Leader for the CommLab. “Getting to see students work through that is really nice.”
They have a good role model in Langendorf, whose theater performances from a young age made her comfortable presenting to high school classes. The finance major doesn’t have to know the first thing about science to help those students learn how to stand and deliver.
“I usually ask them to give me some background,” she said. “If they’re doing a biology speech, I tell them, ‘I’m a business major. I have no idea what’s going on here. Explain it to me like I’m 5.’
“A lot of it is articulation – make sure they pronounce their t’s and d’s, talk loud enough and are conversational.”
The CommLab and Writing Center share a room for a reason. Peer Leaders from the two programs often work side-by-side and do trainings together because students’ communication needs often overlap.
Dr. Laura Goldstein, the SSC Assistant Director who manages both units, emphasizes that students can come in at any step of the writing process.
“Sometimes people aren’t aware of that,” she said. “Either the students think or even professors think that there needs to be some sort of finished essay, but there doesn’t.
“Students can come in for even interpreting the assignment instructions or for getting the outline out – any step in the process, even if they’re finished and just want to work on the citations.”
Another frequent Writing Center use is for essays tied to job applications. “We tell them, ‘People are going to be reading hundreds of these things. You need to grab their attention from the beginning so that your essay stands out,’” Goldstein said.
Goldstein’s office is right next to where the tutoring takes place, and she regularly hears the words that stand out to any SSC administrator: “Wow, this was really helpful,” a student will say. “I’m going to come back.”
The bulk of the SSC’s work is centered in three units: Peer Tutoring, PLTL (Peer-Led Team Learning) and Supplemental Instruction.
Students can drop in, without an appointment, for one-on-one Peer Tutoring on the bottom floor of the McDermott Library (MC 1.304). The most frequent needs are help with mathematics, chemistry and physics, but other courses are available as well on the tutoring schedule. The SSC’s spring 2025 hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday.
“It’s a little intense at times, especially during exam weeks,” said senior Nive Bala, a Team Leader for Peer Tutoring. “A lot of students are coming in, and you have to learn how to think quickly on your feet.
“Sometimes I study beforehand to make sure I can help students as effectively as possible, especially if it’s a subject I received less instruction time in.”
But Bala has found that tutoring the same topics regularly makes it easier to recognize specific questions from previous semesters. “I’ve gone from needing to rely on other people to being able to help other people because of six semesters of doing the same thing,” she said.
Students who prefer a group setting can sign up for PLTL, which requires them to register for 90-minute weekly sessions that span the semester. Once they sign up, attendance is mandatory – absences can result in being removed from sessions in the current and future semesters.
“We go over problems, talk through the questions, identify common traps,” said senior Owais Sayeed, a Team Leader for PLTL.
Three years ago, Sayeed felt himself falling into those traps and was grateful for PLTL.
“I needed the help,” he said. “I took calculus and chemistry, which are historically challenging courses. They truly helped me succeed in ace-ing these courses. I learned tips, tricks, strategies.”
Supplemental Instruction provides some of the same benefits as PLTL without the attendance requirement. The group-study sessions, led by a Peer Leader who has taken the course, are designed to be collaborative and are voluntary although regular attendance usually results in a better grade.
Yes, that’s the goal of all these programs – a better grade. It is important to understand the material. A lot of it is canceling out the fear factor. And bridging that transition from high school to college certainly is a focus.
But it comes down to this:
“People aren’t coming to tutoring to pass,” Murphy said. “They’re coming to tutoring to get the A-plus.”
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Also in this series:
Peer Leaders Help Make Student Success Center a Go-To Place