Student Support Services is an organization at Sinclair Community College that is federally funded through the Department of Education and is specifically designed to serve first generation, income eligible students, according to Counselor Larry Green.
To help students reach their various goals, SSS offers a wide range of activities for free. They provide various degrees of counseling, including new student orientation, academic advising, personal counseling and peer counseling. SSS also helps students with financial aid applications and transfer issues as well as career planning and exploration, according to its Web site.
“The prototype of the kind of student that we would like to see are students that come in not even realizing they are college material, not thinking that they could be here and be successful for very long, only to see them flourish, blossom, be able to do well in school by being able to use us and our resources as a home base,” Green said.
First generation students, students whose parents haven’t earned a bachelor’s degree but may have some postsecondary experience, make up more than half the population of Sinclair, according to sinclair360.com.
SSS serves more than 200 Sinclair students, according to Green. He said the biggest obstacles first generation college students face are confidence issues and lack of support.
“First generation college students typically haven’t had the advantages that other college students who aren’t first generation have,” he said.
Natasha Hunter, a Communication major, said she was lacking direction until the campus Ombudsman, Brenda Seufert, referred her to SSS.
“(SSS) has helped me personally and academically. My counselor, Ms. Cynthia Russ, has helped me with a lot stuff personally. I go through a lot of stuff with my family that causes me to struggle academically,” Hunter said. “First off, (SSS) helps by checking up on me and how I’m doing in my classes by putting out early alerts to me teachers.”
Hunter said before getting involved with SSS, she was just taking classes and really didn’t have a plan, but now she plans on transferring to a four-year college to get her master’s degree.
“Its like you’re in the dark, trying to find a light switch. That’s how it was for me,” Hunter said. “But now, I’ve finally found it and I can see so much more.”