QEP Action Plan

Polk State College’s QEP, Explore to Complete, is a five-year plan that will engage students in intentional curricular and co-curricular career exploration and planning activities. The purpose is to help students develop a career goal so they can get and stay on an academic pathway in order to persist and complete. The action plan was developed based on a comprehensive review of the literature related to career exploration and planning themes. Best and promising practices were identified that could be implemented in order to accomplish the QEP program goal and help students achieve the learning outcomes. The result is a seven-step action plan:

  1. Implement a career assessment that students complete during the onboarding process.
  2. Develop an online career exploration and planning resource center.
  3. Redesign the career exploration and planning unit in SLS 1122 First-Year Seminar.
  4. Develop toolkits for faculty to incorporate career-based assignments into courses across the curriculum.
  5. Expand student clubs and organizations based on individual Pathways and career fields.
  6. Create additional and enhance existing opportunities for experiential learning.
  7. Create a career readiness badging program.

Each of the actions to be implemented introduces specific activities for students to complete. While several of these activities will be open to all students, the QEP will specifically target first-time-in-college (FTIC) students as they are in greatest need of support in order to persist and complete. In addition, the QEP is designed to engage students in career exploration and planning activities as they move through their educational journey from application to graduation. These activities are designed to be completed in sequence. FTIC students will be exposed to the full range of activities and will experience them in the intended order.

Several actions in the plan represent new strategies and initiatives that will be implemented. New strategies include requiring all students to complete a career assessment, creating faculty toolkits, and developing a career readiness badging program. Other actions in the plan enhance and improve existing strategies. For example, the College currently offers SLS 1122 First-Year Seminar for all FTIC AA-degree-seeking students. The course includes a unit on career exploration. This unit will be redesigned as part of the QEP in order to complement the other initiatives. The College currently has physical Career Centers on each of its campuses as well as a host of online resources. The online career exploration and planning resource center will compile all of these resources in one easily accessible location and provide instruction to students related to career exploration and planning.

For more information on the action plan of Polk State College’s QEP, Explore to Complete, please see Chapter 4 of the Quality Enhancement Plan.