Planning pays off for AC students

By MARIA VALLES, Staff Reporter |

Registration for Amarillo College’s summer and fall classes opens April 8, and both students and staff members say educational planning helps people stay focused on their goals. 

“I believe educational planning is important,” Josselyn Egbert, an AC graduate, said. “It helps have a clear end goal to your educational needs. It helps precisely pinpoint what you want to get out of your education,” she said. 

As soon as students figure out what they want to do, they need to start planning. “Students should begin their educational planning junior year in high school because it benefits their future and gives a clear view of what is to come,” Chris Leanos, a general studies major, said.

AC advisers help students stay on track as well as guide them through college. “We make sure students are in the right major and make sure they are investing their time in the right thing,” Ruth De Anda, an academic adviser, said. “We talk to them about scheduling classes and transfer advising. We check with students who aren’t attending class or failing classes and see if we can help in any way,” she said.

Egbert said she found the AC advisers helpful while she was in college. “The AC advisers were great in helping me stay on task to graduate on time by being able to plan my courses according to my degree plan and showing me alternative classes that could still count as part of my plan if others were unavailable. They were also great in my long-term planning for when I graduated AC and went on to WT. The transfer and transition were explained and their help in doing so was overall great on their part,” she said.

Educational planning can be beneficial for students. “I started planning in high school by looking at colleges that interested me,” Leanos said. “I wasn’t sure on what career path I wanted to take, but planning encouraged me to come to school and get a degree.” 

There are tools and technologies that help students plan their classes. “We have a student planning module that can be accessed through AC Connect and gives students access to see it,” De Anda said. 

“We have access to mold it to what students are wanting to do. If students say they want to do every semester then that helps me plan out the classes every semester. The student planning is going to be the biggest point of reference while being here,” she said.