Spring Break
Building bridges for successful athletes
BEST Bridges Program helps incoming freshman athletes make transition from high school to college during summer months
Mark Pedersen
Issue date: 3/10/09 Section: Sports
The first year of college can be a firestorm of new people, new classes and new activities. Take that, and then throw in the responsibility of being a Division-1 athlete.
Each year, we ask these students to not only maintain their size, speed and athleticism, but also their grades and friendships along the way. Utilizing all their time and effort becoming the best athlete they can be often leaves them shorthanded when it comes to the strenuous workload associated with earning a college degree.
Oregon State and the Office of Academics for Student Affairs have taken it upon themselves to create a unique program that intends to make the transition from high school to college - the point where many of them falter - much easier by providing our student athletes with a cohesive unit of peers to rely on. The goal is to get them started on a positive note and keep the ball rolling through graduation.
"It's helping me get a head start - get a feel for college, how the teachers teach, what the resources are, get to know the campus," said one participant through a video promoting the Bridge program.
The program these athletes participate in is the aptly named BEST Bridge Program.
The key point of the Bridge program is to create a bridge from high school to college. Bridge is broken up into many parts of varying intensity and emphasis. There are two main aspects incorporated into the core of the program.
The first is academic. Katie Mason, a sociology teacher and an office assistant with Academics for Student Affairs, spoke about this aspect of the Bridge program. In the three weeks spent on campus during Bridge, every participant must take either SOC 204: Intro to Sociology or SOC 206: Social Problems and Issues. In addition, they take a time management course that is intertwined into their sociology class in an effort to showcase how these skills can be directly applied to the classroom.
The second aspect is social. Every weekend, the studies are put on hold and a group activity is planned. Activities include trips to Ashland for the film festival, group attendance at an Oregon State football game, hanging out at the OSU Challenge Ropes Course and visits to the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
Each year, we ask these students to not only maintain their size, speed and athleticism, but also their grades and friendships along the way. Utilizing all their time and effort becoming the best athlete they can be often leaves them shorthanded when it comes to the strenuous workload associated with earning a college degree.
Oregon State and the Office of Academics for Student Affairs have taken it upon themselves to create a unique program that intends to make the transition from high school to college - the point where many of them falter - much easier by providing our student athletes with a cohesive unit of peers to rely on. The goal is to get them started on a positive note and keep the ball rolling through graduation.
"It's helping me get a head start - get a feel for college, how the teachers teach, what the resources are, get to know the campus," said one participant through a video promoting the Bridge program.
The program these athletes participate in is the aptly named BEST Bridge Program.
The key point of the Bridge program is to create a bridge from high school to college. Bridge is broken up into many parts of varying intensity and emphasis. There are two main aspects incorporated into the core of the program.
The first is academic. Katie Mason, a sociology teacher and an office assistant with Academics for Student Affairs, spoke about this aspect of the Bridge program. In the three weeks spent on campus during Bridge, every participant must take either SOC 204: Intro to Sociology or SOC 206: Social Problems and Issues. In addition, they take a time management course that is intertwined into their sociology class in an effort to showcase how these skills can be directly applied to the classroom.
The second aspect is social. Every weekend, the studies are put on hold and a group activity is planned. Activities include trips to Ashland for the film festival, group attendance at an Oregon State football game, hanging out at the OSU Challenge Ropes Course and visits to the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
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