Student Assistance Program

By 1to1help
Working Towards New Beginnings

Students are at a crucial juncture in their academic journey, with several decisions
and uncertainties ahead of them. These include choosing the right college, moving
away from home, dealing with unknowns and making the right decision for
themselves. While the journey can be full of learning and opportunity, students may
also feel pressured, stressed and anxious during this process.

Objective
• To help students understand their emotions while going through the
decision-making process and handling life’s changes
• To help students feel equipped with decision-making skills

Audience type: Suitable for all students

Duration: 45 minutes + 15 minutes of Q&A

Main themes:
• Feeling check for all participants
• New beginnings: what is going to change?
• The transition from home to campus, and associated changes
• Strategies that can help manage these changes
• Academic decision making
• Types of decision makers & identifying one’s prominent style of decision
making
• Steps to ensure a smooth decision-making process
• Case example
• Activity: Passengers on a Bus

Key takeaways:
• Tapping into one’s feelings about the future, managing change and making
decisions
• Understanding how to manage new beginnings with less stress/anxiety
• Learning how to be a better decision-maker

Activity present:
 • Feeling check: Students will be shown a list of “feeling words”; they can
choose the most relevant feeling word and explain what leads them to feel
this way currently
• Passengers on a bus: Students will imagine their thoughts and emotions like
passengers seated on a bus. They will be encouraged to allow some of the
thoughts (negative, self-critical, self-defeating, anxious ones) to get off the
bus, so that they can focus more on empowering/positive thoughts and
feelings about their future. They will be guided in a step-by-step manner by
the counsellor

Case example:
• A student feels nervous and anxious about making a decision for his future.
He feels torn between staying close to his parents or moving to a better
college that is far away from home