360 Advising Model
As an undeclared student, Max Henin `20 saw many paths before him when he arrived at Quinnipiac, but couldn’t identify the one for him. While he enjoyed math and thought about exploring the social sciences, he also had a strong interest in forensic science. Over the next four years, Quinnipiac’s CAS360 advising model helped Henin put his academic and professional interests—and his future—into focus.
During his internship, Henin shadowed forensic scientists as they collected and analyzed a variety of evidence from real crime scenes, and he observed more than a dozen autopsies. He also helped test the efficacy of a new technique designed to save forensic scientists time, money and resources.
Henin realized that he wanted to work more directly with the victims of crimes, and he is now considering a career in forensic psychology. Were it not for the CAS360 advisers, Henin may not have discovered this, nor would he have had the opportunities he did. “I can’t say enough about my advisers and all of their guidance,” Henin said. “They helped me navigate academics, connect with professionals and truly wanted to see me succeed.”
How does our unique advising structure support this type of student development?
We’ve built our 360 Advising Process based on the idea that every experience you have can have an impact on your academic journey and your career. The process of exploration, implementation, and reflection is central to the idea of 360 advising. Each experience becomes a point of learning that helps you evaluate your development as a student and as a person; helps you understand your values, interests and goals; and helps you make informed choices about your academic and career options during your time here and beyond.
As your academic journey progresses, these experience become the core of your professional story as well. Employers are looking for candidates who are not only academically accomplished, but who have also exposed their skills to the real world and learned from that experience.
We hope you begin from a place of broad academic exploration, choose a major that excites you, explore, and reflect on all the potential career paths available to you to identify a few areas of interest. This brings you to an initial reflection point where you can begin to expand your horizons again, based on that initial knowledge, and begin to engage in activities to expose you to the real world application in your areas of interest (study abroad, co-curricular opportunities, clubs and organizations, research with faculty, internships, etc.) and build skills that can help you advance academically and professionally.
After exploring broadly, and trying a few things out in practice, you reach another reflection point where you can begin to narrow your focus to choose an initial career area and begin to build specific skills, inside and outside the classroom, to help refine your skill set to your new, more specific, goal (additional internships and other experiential learning options). This process should continue even after you leave Quinnipiac, as a way to carefully consider future career choices, advancement opportunities and career changes. This whole process is tied together by the relationship we hope you can build with your advisors, who can help guide you throughout your time at Quinnipiac and beyond.
Everyone comes to this process differently. We’ve created a four-year navigation plan as a rough guide to the steps you should be aware of each year to keep you on a path to a rewarding education and career! You should not consider these requirements or checklists, but rather milestones and guideposts along your path.
