As the new school year gets underway here in North America, thoughts turn to learning. Every new learning opportunity comes with both excitement, and just a tinge of fear: "Will I be able to learn this? Do I know what I'm getting into? Does everyone else know more than I do? Are they all smarter than me?"
Dipping your toes into Campus Solutions for the first time can be overwhelming. The learning curve looks something like this:
You start off thinking "All right, I have a handle on this. Look, I'm getting it!!" Fairly soon, even though you are learning more, you start to plummet into a state of despair. "Oh boy. There are too many things!! I will never get this. I keep forgetting things. Nothing makes sense. WHY AREN'T THESE DATES WORKING? WHY DID WE START USING THIS PRODUCT?!? I want the old product back."
Slowly, things start to gel. You realize that there actually are logical connections between components and concepts. Things do behave consistently (most of the time). And of course, you have finally got all the proper security to be able to view and use all the things you need. You've even created some "Favorites", despite the fact that three months ago, you wouldn't have been able to imagine using the words "Campus Solutions" and "favorite" in the same sentence.
Now you're really rolling! You're exploring more functions. You've cycled through the year and got through it! You're trying new things and you aren't afraid that you will be the one to make the mistake that causes the whole system to crash. You know the rules well enough to look at some of the advising requirements you built last year and think that when you find some time, you're going to go back and fix those. They work, but now you know how to simplify and improve them.
Then it happens. You have now learned enough to know that there is a whole pile of functions in this product that you know nothing about. It seems that all the other users have {subplans/entity groups/dynamic conditions/advising notes/appended plans/148 course share sets/special advising reports}. Now you have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as well as FOLS (Fear of Looking Stupid). At the same time, you can't remember what is delivered functionality and what is customized. Your "titantic" confidence has hit the iceberg of knowledge. SOS! SOS! SOS!
Fear not, colleagues! You are in the right place. HEUG and your Academic Advising community are here to throw you some lifelines. Watch the AA Forum, perhaps even ask a question. It doesn't matter if you're a beginner or an old hand at this, there is always something to learn and always something you don't know. We're here to help each other go from drowning to waving.
Your AA Advisory Group has created a very short survey to get your input on topics you'd like to learn more about. Please take 2 minutes to complete it. This will aid us in planning out some educational opportunities over the next 7 months, which may include more blogs, webinars and of course, sessions and workshops at Alliance 2020.
