Dominican offers new Pathways Fast format for adults

Each major will be offered in a cohort format, with 20-25 students staying together for the entire two years necessary to complete the Bachelor’s degree. To be accepted into a cohort, students must have six years of post-high school experience, and have completed 50 units of transferrable coursework from a regionally accredited college or university, including most or all of the general education courses. 

A  Pathways Information Session was held at Dominican’s Science Center on December 10.

Focus groups held in September revealed a need for accelerated programs in the region. The Pathways Fast format has a number of advantages in addition to acceleration. Students form a bond with their colleagues that not only encourages them to continue to the degree, but also enables them to call each other if they miss a class due to illness or a business trip. Also, major advisement is simplified, since every course needed for the major is included in the curriculum and known and scheduled from the beginning.

Since 1991, Dominican’s Pathways program has been serving re-entry students with a variety of majors leading to the Bachelor’s degree. The majority of Pathways offerings are scheduled in the evening, since the majority of Pathways students work during the day. 

One dimension that makes accelerated cohorts more attractive now is the possibility of integrating some distance learning into the curriculum. In Business Administration and Applied Humanities, some of the courses with on-line learning are combined with on-campus meetings so that students will have the best of all worlds: Fewer  trips to campus, but one-to-one contact to form strong bonds with faculty and other students. Although the cohorts do have a summer semester, they have breaks for all national holidays and a month off during the December/January holidays. 

Dominican also will continue to offer the current Pathways programs, called Pathways Flex. This program allows students to proceed toward the degree at their own pace, and also offers a wider variety of majors. This program is a good resource for students who want to acquire the 50 credits necessary to become eligible for the Pathways Fast program. Both Pathways Fast and Pathways Flex offer life experience credit, at no cost, while showing students how to frame that experience in academic theory and practice. 

For more information, call Dominican Admissions Office at (415) 485-3280 or log onto www.dominican.edu/admissions/pathways.