Academic Support Systems For Success: Story Of Oliver P.

" You get handed work left right and center regardless of what is going on in your other classes… college will overwhelm you. You will always be overloaded. Understanding how to take that massive workload and prioritize things and make choices. Making these prioritization points on what will benefit me in the future is what I learned from EFC. "

-Oliver P.-

Academic Support For Oliver

When Oliver came to EFC, he was overwhelmed and needed a very specific academic support. He needed priority management. Like other students, Oliver was faced with one of the most daunting tasks in his life. Deciding on a college path to hopefully lead him to his dreams was a big decision. Oliver wanted as little academic support from tutors and teachers because he was afraid, they would find him difficult to deal with. The EFC team was shocked. To us he was always eager to take on educational strategies and learn from his mistakes. Oliver is tremendously gifted and has an accelerated learning curve. Overwhelmed with choices and with little guidance in priority management, achieving his goal seemed like a distant dream. And so, he came to EFC for some structure in creating his academic support system for this journey he was about to embark on.

Journey Of Academic Support

At first, providing the academic support Oliver needed was a balance of building rapport and challenging him enough to keep him engaged. Oliver loved working with his hands and science, but he hated writing and the liberal arts. He had plenty of confidence in his abilities, so our job was to teach him the priority management skills he needed to manage his goals. EFC worked with Oliver on test prep, college counseling, subject tutoring, and executive functioning. Through it all, the biggest learning curve was helping Oliver recognize the educational strategies that worked for him and when to use them to his advantage. How do we accelerate learning in a way that feels right? Oliver knew he wanted to attend a STEM College and study Materials Engineering. We strove to model the academic support system he needed to create in college.

Success For Oliver

Today, Oliver has built a great academic support system at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he is studying to be a materials science engineer. In his first year, he found a home in the Rensselaer MotorSport Club, where he helped construct their yearly F1 race car. Because Oliver knows he wants a career in academic research, he got an early jump as a research assistant testing different materials for braking pads. Everyday, Oliver is using his priority management skills to make the decisions he knows are right for him. Even though Oliver still finds life to be overwhelming at times, he has learned skills to build the right life and academic support systems he needs to succeed.