Gabriel Reches

Professor B. Holly

English 101

26 March 2019

Probation and the Much-Needed Perspectives to Surviving College

There are those that let failures define them, and then there are those that use failures to

provide opportunities for growth and success. Students on academic probation can often find

themselves at a crossroads between these two reactions to failure. The negative connotations

surrounding academic probation can cripple a student’s self-confidence or psychological

wellbeing and can lead them to self-shaming, which often results in further lack of performance

and motivation. It is all the more important for these students to seek out help from a psychologist

or counseling service because these burdens are often too heavy to carry alone. Going it alone can

often lead to a repetition of the patterns that led them here in the first place. An advisor, on the

other hand, can help guide students towards a positive, growth-minded, metacognitive mindset.

This guidance towards increased self-awareness and personal development will not only steer a

struggling student toward academic success and a sense of renewed optimism, but can also serve

to build long lasting habits that serve for a lifetime.

Often times, students on academic probation have a fixed mindset when it comes to

intelligence. They see intelligence as inherent, not as something that can be developed. Fixed-

minded individuals view struggling to understand a topic as a bad reflection on themselves. The

University of Arizona’s Academic Affairs has a web series that touches on the opposite outlook,

which is a growth mindset. A growth mindset would imply that a person views intelligence as

something that can be developed. Students with a growth mindset believe failure is a part of
learning; they view struggling as an opportunity to grow and attain more knowledge. Feedback is

not taken personally, rather they recognize it as constructive criticism. The biggest difference and

what separate the academic results of these two different mindsets, is that fixed minded individuals

are, “more likely to seek to demonstrate their ‘smartness’ and less likely to ask questions in order

to overcome setbacks in their learning.” (Growth Mindset A Strategy in the Learning to Learn

Series). Although easier said than done, students should view setbacks and failures as a chance to

grow and should encourage themselves to persevere through challenges. It seems that many

students rarely take this approach to failure. A fixed mindset will often debilitate a student’s ability

to succeed and many students fall into this category because they aren’t equipped with the proper

mental tools or are too afraid to ask for help when they need it most.

When I started my freshman year at Indiana University in the fall of 2017, I had an

extremely underdeveloped sense of metacognition. I came from a college preparatory high

school, where class sizes were small and your hand was held most of the way. This led me to

being overly confident about my knowledge and abilities and also caused me to underestimate

the amount of work I needed to put in to thrive academically. By the end of the first semester, I

was not in good academic standing and was thus placed on academic probation. When the

second semester rolled in, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to grow and pick myself back up,

I became sad and full of shame and slipped further into my struggles. It was a mentality that I

couldn’t shake. Not once did I seek out help from a psychologist or school counselor and as a

result, I continued to do poorly. I was never taken off of probation and was dismissed from the

University. Now, reflecting back after gaining some helpful perspective from a psychologist, I

am able to understand the mindset I once had and can apply all the lessons that I learned from

my missteps to my present academic endeavors.

 Of course, there are students that are reluctant to ask for help from counseling services or

a psychologist. It is understandable that students might feel, due to pride, that they don’t need

assistance that they can figure it out on their own. Some might feel that such help is useless because

of bad past experiences with such professionals, but how can a student with a fixed-mindset on

academic probation expect to thrive without support? To have the courage and self-discipline to

treat your own short-fallings is no easy task on your own. Studies have shown that reaching out

for support and participating in programs helps raise a student’s GPA. I can say from personal

experience that talking to a psychologist allowed me to vocalize my struggles and provided me

with a wonderfully new perspective that has helped me regain my confidence academically. As I

look back, I do not feel that I could have done this alone.

The University of California, San Diego has a unique program called Goals in Action,

which is designed to help students on academic probation who struggle with their mentality

towards school. In 2007, Molly Nonce wrote an article for Diverse Education discussing the

program. Nonce wrote, “The Goals in Action research project fuses the work of the university’s

academic support office with the efforts of the student health and wellness department to address

social, behavioral and psychological functioning, both inside and outside the classroom.” (The

Psychological Impact of Academic Probation). A psychologist by the name of Dr. Daniel

Singley led the program along with his colleague Dr. Jeanne Manese. GIA students partake in a

series of five 75-minute workshops facilitated by professionals from Psychological and

Counseling Services. Prior to the workshops, students hear testimonials from provosts, deans,

assistant deans and/or academic advisors who share their stories of hard times, some even facing

academic probation when they were in college. (The Psychological Impact of Academic

Probation) Hearing these stories introduces hope for these students and allows them to relate to
their advisors. Dr. Daniel claimed that students were getting a full GPA point higher, and showed

improvements in their psycho-social ability. Rarely do schools have programs such as GIA and I

believe that it's very important for all colleges to integrate programs like this so that students feel

supported and hopeful in their academic endeavors. Many student's need something like this

where they can apply these newly learned mindsets to their everyday study habits and

engagements in class.

In conclusion, a growth-mindset and proper sense of metacognition can be achieved

through introspection and the ability to seek support. If students on probation master these

mental abilities, they have the power to face not only academic challenges, but also all obstacles

in life, whether it be striving for a promotion at work or trying to master a sport. Today, thanks to

my past experiences at Indiana, I feel that I am better able to improve on my skills as an athlete,

as a student and as a person. I continue to grow a little every day and will use my past failures as

fuel to propel me forward to future success.

Works Cited

Cmaadmin. “The Psychological Impact of Academic Probation.” Diverse, 1 Nov. 2007,

diverseeducation.com/article/10004/.

University, Arizona. “Administration Building 501.” Academic Affairs,

academicaffairs.arizona.edu/growth-mindset.