Better yet, what did you want to be when you grew up? Are you ‘that’?
Answering these questions takes a certain level of confidence. But, if we’re lifelong learners, it’s also an evolving response. From youth, the quest for an answer leads to university or college, opportunities seized, experience gained, and jobs attempted. But, it’s usually a winding road filled with failing forward – never easy and character building. Each year, the first day back to school conjures familiar anticipation and possibilities to chip away at fulfilling one’s path and purpose. For this community, it also brings a slew of emails, notifications, invitations, and juggling. (FYI: you’ve got this, and we’re here for you.)
At Orbis, we’ve been preparing and are excited to be offering Back-to-School Outcome virtual training sessions that are freely available to all campus partners to support a successful September. This training kicks off this Thursday, September 16th, and will cover Co-op Troubleshooting – pulling from the top ten questions and answers in our Community of Practice. Join us to boost your support for students and graduates seeking answers to “who they are” and “what they are good at” in the face of additional global uncertainties that only emphasize the call for exploration and experience. Our development team is also on its toes, hurriedly enhancing and adapting Outcome every day so that it remains agile in anticipation of our shape-shifting global environment and employment landscape. Starting this new academic year, please also feel free to lean into our Community of Practice or get fast support from our Product Success and Deployment Teams through online chat, now available through Zendesk until the end of this month, or connect with your Orbis product success or deployment ‘human’ by email or phone. We’re here for you!
In anticipation of the year ahead, the post-pandemic horizon is visible but we’re not there yet. A recent nationwide survey reveals that 57% of high school graduates felt that the pandemic had negatively impacted their confidence in starting post-secondary education, 62% emphasized worry about their future education, and 56% expressed anxiety about their current employment situation. Evidence-based decision-making will continue to be critical in building support and meaningful learning outcomes for students and recent graduates who are stepping into their academic year or job-search. Looking ahead, we will continue to empower you with integration, data-driven tools, research, analytics, client support, and training so that you can adapt and grow experiential learning and opportunities, at-scale and in a hybrid work or study environment, knowing that you are also upholding the mission, vision, and values of your institution. (You see, we like to think that by doing what we’re best at, we help you to do so too.)
In our recent newsletter, we provided registration links for Outcome Back-to-School training, back-to-school resources to elevate your September, insights into our first Equity, Diversity and Inclusion session (and who you can contact if you’re interested in hosting one yourself), introductions to four new faces who’ve joined our Product Success, Deployment, and Outcome teams, an overview of Mindset’s upcoming offerings, our latest podcast, and an Orbis Back-to-School playworklist (yes, we made you a modern version of a mixtape.) If you didn’t receive this newsletter, let us know. We will be happy to get fall-term resources in your hands!
In short? Welcome back!!!We look forward to seeing each of you at our Back-to-School training and to a successful year ahead.
Orbis