Students’ Opinion on Steps to Success

The AUB 100 Steps to Success course has been an integral part of every freshman’s first semester for the last five years. The Academic Advising Center Director and organizer of the course, Maia Parmakova, agreed to provide information about it for the readers of AUBG Daily. Additionally, three students from different standings shared their impressions on the subject.

The course has left AUBGers with varying opinions, but according to Parmakova: “By now, their feedback has been very positive.” This statement proved to be true according to junior Teodora Nikolova, who “really enjoyed the time and met with a lot of professors and other guests from different fields and spheres.” 

“It was like getting to know more about the university and more about specific professors,” was a positive aspect stated by Desislava Stamova, a senior. “I have a memory with Professor Robert Phillips from the POS department who was giving a lecture on how to be motivated,” Stamova said. “I was like ‘someone just opened my eyes’ and I need to take a lecture with this professor,” she continued.

Nikolova was also left “impressed by the way in which Professor Phillips introduced the subject of the lecture” and this “kept my attention for a very long time.” She thinks that meeting different professors was “useful to broaden our horizons and show us that we can develop interests not only in the fields that we have interest in at the moment but in different ones.” Nikolova continued by saying that “the best thing of this course was that they told us a lot of strategies on how to start our academic way.” 

Parmakova said, “students highly appreciate the opportunity to get insights from different professors and this is something we continue to offer.” Nikolova agreed, stating, “All the professors and guest lecturers shared their experience when they were in universities, and we learned a lot about how to cope with everything and how to adjust to the atmosphere here.”

Gabriela Stanimirova, a freshman, had a different view of the course. “My overall impression of the course was neither good nor bad,” she stated. “For one, in the beginning, it made me feel as if the university really cares about its incoming students and welcomes them warmly.” Stanimirova added that “on the other hand, as the lessons went on, none of them were particularly useful, nor did they provide any new information or advice we haven’t heard before.”

Stamova said, “if it wasn’t a mandatory course, I wouldn’t have signed up for the other lectures except the first one I attended, I want to be honest with this.” She added that the course “needs a lot more practical exercises and I know how hard it is, especially for freshmen, to stay an hour and 20 minutes.”

Stanimirova agreed by saying “it would have been best if the course was shorter and if it engaged the students better.” This opinion was also supported by Nikolova, who said “this course might be more engaging, including more group activities and having lectures outside because in September the weather is nice.”  She continued by suggesting “they can arrange lectures in a historical museum, for example, with history professors and just being outside the normal day at AUBG.” 

When asked about the main takeaway from the course, Stanimirova answered “I do not remember anything in particular from the course.” She also said, “I find the format of the MentiFY program to be more useful, as it accomplished what the AUBG Steps to Success tried to do: making the students feel welcomed and providing them with an opportunity to freely ask questions about life at the University in a more informal setting.”