Presenter:

Sierra Knotts, Undergraduate Academic Advisor, Biological Sciences

Presentation Outcomes:

1. Define interdisciplinary literacy in an advising context
2. Identify common literacy gaps that students experience
3. Apply advising strategies that help build student independence and confidence in campus resources

Examples of Areas of Advising Literacy:

1. Digital Literacy (Self Service, DegreeWorks, Blackboard, CRM, Navigate, etc)
2. Academic Literacy (Understanding prerequisites, corequisites, GPA calculations, etc)
3. Institutional Literacy (Understanding registration processes, withdrawal deadline, Pass/Fail options, Grade Forgiveness policy, etc)
4. Career Literacy (Connecting coursework to career goals and experiential learning)
5. Financial Literacy (Understanding tuition, scholarship requirements, etc)
6. Communication Literacy (Writing professional emails to faculty & staff)

Presentation Overview:

Every student comes to USC with a different level of experience navigating the hidden curriculum of college. Transfer students, first-gen students, military-affiliated students, non-traditional students, and students coming straight from high school all bring varying levels of knowledge, different strengths, and unique needs to their advising appointments. And in these appointments, advisors spend a lot of time helping students make sense of the university systems, expectations, and resources they need to successfully navigate USC and earn their degree.

The hidden curriculum isn’t just one skill. It’s made up of many different literacies that students are expected to develop along the way. Understanding a degree audit requires digital literacy, academic literacy, and institutional literacy. Connecting coursework to career goals often depends on understanding university resources and communicating effectively with faculty and staff. These skills overlap in ways that students may not recognize, but advisors see every day. This session explores how these different forms of literacy work together and how advisors can intentionally help students build the confidence and skills they need to navigate college more independently.

The Hidden Curriculum of College: Literacy as an Advising Tool