Workshop Wednesdays sessions provide college guidance to students
In an effort to support students’ academic goals and personal growth, the University of Houston-Victoria has started a new initiative during this school year to provide students with skills and knowledge needed to thrive in their college journey.
Held weekly, the sessions are led by academic advisor Emiliano Garza every Wednesday.
“Workshop Wednesdays is essentially a way for me to teach students, rather than a direct course or coursework,” Garza said. “It’s more of an overview of things to help students on a broader scale in college life.”
The workshops cover a variety of topics, ranging from test-taking strategies to effective group work and communications. Recently, Garza said he led a session focused on preparing students for midterm exams, breaking down different methods for staying calm, understanding test questions, and laying out best practices for optimizing study habits.
“For the students taking their midterms this past week, I just broke down different ways to better understand questions and to keep their minds calm,” Garza said. “It’s mainly situations like that where it’s more of a ‘how-to’ on understanding college life as a whole.”
So far, the workshops have seen an average of 14 students coming to the workshop each week, Garza said. Since the sessions began in August, it has seen upwards of double digits of students each session, he added.
“I just want students to see that while college is daunting at times, I want them to realize that college is not scary,” Garza said. “It’s something that’s doable, and manageable. And with the right resources, students can succeed.”
Hanna Hattermann, a psychology major who has been attending the weekly sessions, said the workshops have been helpful to her as she enters her junior year at UHV.
“The workshops are just very interactive and easy to understand,” Hattermann said. “As a student, you can go in not really knowing how to do a certain thing, but the sessions are very thorough and really help you understand the different topics that they go over.”
In addition to the in-person sessions held in University West, the sessions are also accessible virtually via Microsoft Teams, Garza said. Recordings and presentation slides will be made available for students who cannot attend the live sessions.”
“It’s possible to overcome any kind of obstacle that comes with attending college,” Garza said. “If students strive to do better than what they were doing the day before, the week before, they’ll be able to accomplish essentially anything they want.”
There will be five remaining sessions through the end of the semester for UHV students interested in attending.
10/30: Handling Failure
11/6: Pushing Past Procrastination
11/13: Applying AI Academically
11/20: Designing your Dream Life
11/25: Studying for Finals
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 50 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.