Episode 74: How Transferring Colleges and Speed Dating are Related with David Cook, Founder and CEO of DegreeSight
David is the Founder and CEO of DegreeSight. An engineer by education and with a career in product management helping Fortune 100 companies go through digital transformations, he brings everything to the table to help universities and students succeed in a changing environment. And as a father of two young boys, he knows that nothing is more important than the future.
Colleges wanting to give students a home
Most universities have many clubs and organizations for students to join. This can be from simple clubs to Greek organizations as well. They will even give additional scholarships to push students to be on campus. This not only includes playing for housing but also paying for meals. The big reason that many students drop out is that they do not find a home. They have their coursework and activities but not a home. Even with everything being online today, the students online have different expectations than those students that are going to be on-site on campus. The students that choose to be on campus are on campus because they want a home and want to experience the culture of college life. It all comes down to consumer human behavior. A lot of it comes down to relationships, it’s fear, it is about dopamine and cortisol.
Are colleges getting better at preparing freshman students?
The answer to this is both yes and no. It all depends on what types of questions you are asking. On a macro scale, they do have their focus on students’ success when in the past they did not exist. In the start there was little to no help when it came to the students getting help from their advisor but as the college evolves their attention was more focused on making students successful. It is also due to the federal funding that colleges are getting better and improving. Support systems are being built very effectively at some colleges, whether it be the four-year or the associate’s two-year.
Transferring credits
Students have challenges when it comes to transferring their credits from one university to another. Some credits will apply and some will not even if it is the same type of class. The first challenge is the size. There will be people fighting over the rest of the population in addition to international students coming in. We also have institutions and online completion centric institutions that are focused on adult learning. The second challenge is that the university is hubris. They have so much pride in the name and community that it gets in the way of the student’s interest. The third challenge is an operational challenge and validating coursework. It is not just taking a course from one school and accepting it at another school. In fact, it is actually the deans at the schools shaking hands and agreeing to start working together. Due to that, you get into the political nature of does the dean validates that the college is having a high enough caliber of curriculum to generally work with at all.
Get in contact with David Cook: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-cook
Learn more about DegreeSight: https://www.degreesight.com/
Subscribe and listen to the podcast at IlluminateHigherEducation.com
This episode is brought to you by N2N’s Illuminate App, The iPaaS for Higher Education.
About N2N Services
Founded in 2010, N2N is committed to serving educational institutions and helping them figure out how to serve their students, faculty, and staff using the most innovative technologies and solutions available in the marketplace. Over the last decade, N2N has served over 300 academic institutions and enabled their student success journeys.
N2N Services Inc. is a leader in enterprise application integration and strategic advisory services for higher education, At N2N, we are committed to providing the highest quality solutions and collaboratively building student-centric solutions.
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