{"id":71,"date":"2019-03-28T16:05:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T16:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/customizing-your-courses\/"},"modified":"2019-03-28T21:00:43","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T21:00:43","slug":"customizing-your-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/customizing-your-courses\/","title":{"rendered":"Customizing Your Courses"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Central Texas College strives to provide students the courses of study that best match their educational and career goals. To accomplish this, the college has \u201ctransfer pathways\u201d intended to help students customize their studies and select the best combination of classes (both core options and electives) that align with specific fields of study and their plans for an intended major at a four-year university. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Prescriptive and general in nature, pathways do not supplant degree plans, but they minimize missteps and make it easier for students to get to where they want to go. Think of it as a \u201croadmap\u201d to the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole point is to help students succeed,\u201d says Sara Flusche, NCTC\u2019s dean of instruction. \u201cIt just happens too many times that students take the wrong math credit or they struggle with something like algebra \u2014 a struggle that is usually<\/span>\u00a0caused by a lack of interest in the topic \u2014 and find out later that they could have taken statistics instead. \u2026 Or, they use up their financial aid taking one course and then when they transfer to a four-year university, they\u2019re told, \u2018Oops, that\u2019s not the core course you needed, and you still have to take this other one\u2019 \u2014 which eats up more of their time and money.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NCTC\u2019s pathways initiative is aligned with Texas Pathways,\u00a0an integrated, system-wide approach to student success\u00a0that is based on the American Association of Community Colleges\u2019 Pathways Project, and Flusche offers the opinion that NCTC has gone \u201cabove and beyond\u201d in its efforts to streamline the process for students and help them enroll in the core courses that are right for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

New for Fall 2019, NCTC will offer 21 Associate of Arts <\/span>pathways \u2014 in fields of study ranging from Anthropology and the Humanities to History and the Visual Arts. This is in addition<\/span>
\nto eight AAT pathways for teacher education students; and four Associate of Science pathways.\u00a0 <\/span>NCTC\u2019s pathways also align with recommended fields of study from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and the state of Texas\u2019 \u201c60x30TX\u201d initiative \u2014 which has an ambitious goal of trying to reduce higher education credit hours by 60 hours by 2030.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Students seeking more details are encouraged to visit the Counseling and Advising office at any NCTC campus, or to email\u00a0counseling@nctc.edu<\/a> to review the pathways options as well as potential transfer opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

WHY HIGHER ED MATTERS<\/span><\/p>\n

Recent statistics show that only 20 percent of Texas <\/span>8th-grade students in 2006 graduated from college by 2017, and experts say that in another 10-12 years, 60 percent of Texans will need a certificate or degree for the state to stay competitive in the global economy and to fill the jobs that will be available. Additional research shows that someone with a bachelor\u2019s degree can earn nearly double the lifetime wages of a high school <\/span>graduate \u2014 facts which contributed to\u00a0the state\u2019s <\/span>
\nadoption of its 60x30TX initiative.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Central Texas College strives to provide students the courses of study that best match their educational and career goals. To accomplish this, the college has \u201ctransfer pathways\u201d intended to help students customize their studies and select the best combination of classes (both core options and electives) that align with specific fields of study and… read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1],"tags":[],"article_type":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-services","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/spring-2019-volume-4-issue-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}