The Kennesaw State Coles College of Business began its first wave of rolling out a new engagement program for students at the college.
The program, Flight Academy, allows Coles students to track points based on their attendance of events, activities and tasks which are relevant to career experience. These scores can also be listed on a webpage which students can link in resumes and on LinkedIn.
“At the core, we’re trying to help students develop tools employers look for and ensure that their college education will be important to [their] career in a way that helps them engage while they’re at KSU,” Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs Anne Winn said.
The program is currently only available to the 800 students in the BUSA 1250 Discovering My Major and Career course through the Hughes Leadership and Career Program.
Over the next three years, the program will include BUSA 3150 and 4150 students in the spring and then other courses in the Coles College after that, Winn said.
Winn also stated that Flight Academy is currently only planned for the Coles College, but similar programs are in consideration for other KSU colleges.
“Launched this semester by Coles College Undergraduate Programs, the Flight Academy is an engagement program built on the Suitable software platform that awards points to students who participate in activities that help prepare them for life after graduation,” a KSU News press release said.
The program works by ranking students on a leaderboard based on the points they earn, as well as offering both optional and required badges, which are granted to students for completing sets of tasks online and on campus.
The desktop and mobile applications make earning points easy based on the event students attend. Smaller events may require students to scan a QR code with the mobile app, but a spreadsheet where students tap their student ID and reflection questions will be used to add points from larger events.
“We want students to be successful, but we don’t want to be a burden for the people running the events,” Winn said.
While the program initially lacked in available events for students, online and physical events have been and will continue to be added for points. Contingency plans are in place to prevent a lack of events from holding students back, Winn said.
Flight Academy also has group competitions planned for the future, which are planned to bring in business-oriented student organizations and individual faculty members to encourage meetings with professionals in the business industry.
The program was conceptualized in February 2018 and picked up steam in May 2018. A build team began working in the summer until an initial contract was finalized in September 2018.
Flight Academy is independent of Whitten’s Find Your Wings campaign, but the timing is convenient for the initial program launch, Winn said.