We’re taking our cue as warming trends in the ePortfolio field heat up and move eastward across the country from IUPUI – Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, where they utilize ePortfolio in conjunction with guided reflection prompts to encourage students’ understanding of self. These  “about me”  prompts help to create a reflective narrative, which then provide a foundation for education goals and in turn lead to career goals. To sum it up, these prompts ask students to describe themselves, examine why they are in college and where they are headed.

In our forecast for advising students, you'll see this front move in early in the season. Prior touch points, students will be given reflective question prompts and they will have to create or update a section of their ePortfolio with their thoughts/answers. Coming together with touch point conversations this new trend will help to let the sun shine in on career goals, academic goals and personal interests, to create a career preparedness plan. This also replaces last season’s more mild and breezy student intake and touch point forms. 

This recommendation also builds on another noteworthy front headed our way from out east at Rutgers University in New Jersey where advisors utilize ePortfolio to encourage student self-reflection by asking students to describe themselves, think about issues that are important to them, connect those issues to academic pathways and co-curricular activities.  Advisors assist students in making these connections as well, which you'll see in the upcoming touch point season. We're hoping this brings some relief to areas with considerable career planning cloudiness, or even career visibility fog. 

And lastly back here at Guttman, SSAs and strategists will be issuing a storm warning to students that we anticipate an increased pressure front moving in around the time transfer applications are due. Creating a reflective narrative early on and having a career preparedness plan, may alleviate some of the ill effects of the storm when it is time to write transfer essays.