Counseling and Psychological Service to debut new success seminars

IU’s Counseling and Psychological Services is teaming up with other campus organizations to offer a series of “student success seminars” designed to help students get the most out of their college experiences.

The seven sessions will touch on a variety of topics, such as “Forming Successful Relationships” and “Academic Success: Getting Higher Grades.”

The program begins Oct. 2 and will be held at noon every Thursday until Nov. 13.

Tim Davis, a psychologist at CAPS who will instruct a few seminars, said he wanted to find a way to introduce students to resources on campus in a “fun, light and enjoyable way.”

He said the seminars will benefit students in all areas of life.

“We wanted to help students boil down to the seven singularly most important things to be thinking about and these were the seven most straight forward, core things we came up with,” he said.

Experts from campus organizations such as the Student Academic Center and the Career Development Center will lead the sessions.

Patrick Donahue, director of the Career Development Center, will instruct a seminar titled “Successful Career Planning.”

Donahue said he hopes to familiarize students with the career center, its career resource library and its Web site, IUcareers.com.

“The earlier students get involved with these opportunities, the better they will do,” he said. “Career development is a huge component of that because that’s what students come to college for.”

Because the seminars begin at noon, Davis said he’ll serve Mother Bear’s pizza for lunch as a way to ensure students enjoy themselves.

The seminars can hold 20 people, but if more people show up, Davis said he’ll find a bigger space.

“My hope is we’ve got so many people we don’t have room for anyone,” Davis said. “That’s a problem I would love to deal with.”