Elaine Taylor leads students in discussion during the “My Journey, My Choices” seminar held last month.
SIERRA VISTA — Last month, the College and Career Pathways team at Cochise College worked with adult education students to complete the seminar, “My Journey, My Choices,” which kicked off, for some, an eight-week GED preparation course. Other participants celebrated the completion of the GED test as they plan for the future.
The four-morning voluntary seminar was led by Elaine Taylor, who also teaches non-credit courses through the college’s Center for Lifelong Learning, and covered topics that emphasized personal values, beliefs and interests of students to help them better visualize their future goals. It’s the first time Cochise College Adult Education has offered a GED student success seminar, but it will likely become a regular offering.
“The impetus for this seminar came from current research that proves that life skills are a greater determinate of life success than IQ,” Taylor said. Current research, she said, indicates that a person’s ability to problem solve, make decisions, set and achieve goals are directly related to learned skills, such as communication, healthy relationships and how they understand and perceive themselves.
The 12-hour course gave participants specific information to help them identify what they want for themselves and their families. One student remarked, “This workshop helped me feel better about myself and made me ready to achieve my goals.”
“Students left the class with new ideas about what is possible and an action plan to bring their dreams into reality and, more importantly, the knowing that they have what it takes to accomplish this important educational steps and ones beyond this one, if that is what they choose to do,” Taylor said.
College and Career Pathways is a grant-funded program that helps adult education students with personal training and guidance, offers specialized workshops, promotes job fairs and work readiness skills, and provides individualized information. The Arizona Department of Education Adult Education Services coordinated this pilot project at Cochise College for the last two years as an opportunity to try out different strategies — such as success seminars — to see what works before going to scale statewide.