Academic Strategies
Welcome to the Academic Strategies Program! Our mission is to help all Yale undergraduates to be active, empowered learners in their academic lives at Yale.
Even the best-prepared students struggle with the new, high-intensity demands of academic life at Yale. Few students have experienced challenges like 500+ pages of dense reading per week, learning alongside 300 other students in a lecture class, or speaking up in a seminar led by one of the foremost scholars in the field. All Yale students—even who seem to be most successful academically—have stories to tell about moments when they struggled.
Those students made it through by adapting new ways of thinking about and approaching their academic work. They also seek help and advice from a wide variety of sources—from their residential college deans, faculty, teaching fellows, tutors, and peers. Now the Academic Strategies Program seeks to share these methods with Yale students through 1-1 peer mentoring and workshops.
Peer Academic Mentoring
Talk through your academic challenges and get advice from an empathetic and helpful peer. Our Academic Mentors—juniors, seniors, and grad students—understand the pressures and confusions of academic undergraduate life. They are trained to listen to your concerns, find strengths to build on, and adapt common academic strategies to your particular learning style and goals. Mentoring sessions begin Monday, January 29.
Workshops [1]
Our interactive workshops offer practical advice and strategies for common academic challenges, including:
- time management
- working with faculty
- note-taking and class engagement in seminars and lectures
- managing a heavy reading load
- tackling problems sets
- exam study strategies
The workshops are led by trained undergraduate and graduate peer mentors. We offer drop-in workshops at the Center for Teaching and Learning and with partners across campus, including residential colleges, cultural houses, and student groups. Workshops are open to all Yale College Students and no registration is necessary. Click here [2] to register for workshops.
To schedule a workshop for students or inquire about mentoring, please contact Karin Gosselink, CTL Academic Strategies Program Director, at karin.gosselink@yale.edu [3].
Location: The Academic Strategies Program is located at 301 York St., the York Street entrance of Sterling Memorial Library. All mentoring sessions are held on the mezzanine, where we share space with the Yale College Writing Center within the Center for Teaching and Learning.