Meet Destiny Bracy! Destiny is a sophomore Finance major and a Psychology minor from North Little Rock, AR. Destiny is a Resident Assistant for Maple East, a member of Students Advocating for Stronger Sisterhood, a Parent & Family Ambassadors and involved in the Volunteer Action Center, Black Students Association and NAACP. Destiny enjoys playing the guitar in her free time!

Being a college student is amazing, however, your student will come to find that it is a bit different than high school. The classes are more challenging, and the workload is heavier. Fortunately, the University of Arkansas has the Center for Learning and Student Success (commonly known as CLASS+). CLASS+ has many locations available to your student. Within the CLASS+ office, there is a multitude of resources available to help your Razorback succeed throughout all four years of undergrad and beyond. These resources include academic coaching, supplemental instruction, tutoring, writing support, and even employment opportunities.

If your student is having any trouble with how to approach college level classes, CLASS+ offers academic coaching to keep your student on task. An academic coach is completely different than a tutor. The academic coaches provide one-on-one, individualized sessions to aid in your student’s success by helping them to build long-term academic skills and develop strategies to help with learning the content, whereas a tutor helps with course specific content. Some of the challenges students face that academic coaches help with include time management, study strategies, note-taking, test anxiety, and adjusting academically to the university. Academic coaches are available in Gregson Hall and appointments are automatically scheduled for fifty minutes. Your student can reserve up to two appointments per week.

Supplemental instruction is a series of weekly study sessions that gives your student an opportunity to meet in a small group setting to better understand course material. Supplemental instruction is taught by students who have previously taken the course and earned an A at the end of the semester. SI leaders are able to break down and simplify the material that the professor teaches while also giving their personal experience on taking the course and tips on how to approach exams. For me, supplemental instruction has helped tremendously. I have had great SI leaders who have helped me to understand tough material. Without supplemental instruction, I know that I would not have performed as well in those challenging classes. To sign up for SI, your student has to log on to razortrack.uark.edu, an online portal that allows students to sign up for SI, switch SI sessions, and keep track of SI grades and attendance. Openings for SI sessions are available during the first week of classes.

CLASS+ also offers tutoring on course specific content. Not only can your student make an appointment via Razortrack, but they can drop in for quick questions (no appointment necessary), meet with a tutor online via video chat, and participate in chat tutoring which is a quick way to get questions answered via text.

Sometimes, writing essays can be a complicated process. Thankfully, CLASS+ offers writing support to assist students with any stage of their writing process by helping them learn revision strategies for developing academic and professional writing skills. Writing tutors help students with course essays, scholarship prompts, personal statements, and other documents. During their appointment, students should bring their paper and their assignment sheet so the tutor can confirm that the student is on the right track. CLASS+ writing support is located in 315 of Kimpel Hall and these sessions last 30 or 50 minutes, depending on the preference of your student.

Not only are all of these services available to your student, but they can also have the chance to be a part of the CLASS+ team! CLASS+ offers jobs to students interested in helping their peers with their challenging courses. Your Razorback can have the opportunity to become a supplemental instruction leader, a CLASS+ tutor, or a CLASS+ writing tutor. This would be a great opportunity for your student, and they could gain great leadership experience that they can apply to their future careers!

CLASS+ offers many resources to help your student succeed. All appointments can be scheduled on Razortrack.uark.edu. The cost of these services is included within your student’s tuition, so there are no extra fees. Parents, please encourage your student to utilize CLASS+ and all it has to offer. They definitely will not regret it!