Guided Pathways program to boost graduation rates

Dylan Newman, Staff Reporter

The new Guided Pathways system will group similar majors and allow students more freedom to explore other areas of their major.

Meta-majors Guided Pathways allows students with similar majors to be distinguished within their niche to take classes across all of the potential career paths. For example, a business administration major could be exposed to the entrepreneurship side of business, and could decide accordingly to alter their career path based on their interests.

Program leaders Kim Palmore and Lydia Hearn have declined to comment on Meta-majors.

The program strives to create a faster path to graduation.

According to the Community College Research Center, at other colleges with the program, graduation rates were boosted with numbers such as 44% to 61%.

The networking potential can greatly benefit students participating in Meta-majors, as students with similar majors will share similar classes.

Although these plans encourage exploration of student interest within their decided major, it could raise some concern with undecided students.

Changing the status quo from De Anza’s current method of course taking could also be polarizing to people unfamiliar and skeptical of the programs success.