Orienteers use an accurate, detailed map and a compass to find points in the landscape.

Accurate, detailed “maps” of learning goals and curricula identify potential learning experiences. The “compasses” that point students toward goals are academic advisors, mentoring professors, and career information. Required proficiencies and assessments, often completed in a specific sequence, are educational “points in the landscape.” Students attending multiple institutions need a portable compass that will guide them through inevitably more complex terrain.

Novices first go through a simple course and then progressively more difficult ones to learn map-reading skills.

Freshman experiences provide extended orientation to college life and learning. Some students may need specific remedial study to support their transition to college. Early successes are important for novice learners regardless of the topic. As in orienteering, some educational experiences will require close supervision by experts so no one gets lost. Both the difficulty of the task and the independence of the learner increase as the student moves to more advanced levels.

A standard orienteering course consists of a start, a series of sequentially numbered control sites, and a finish.

College learning is coherent and carefully sequenced. An advisor familiar with a student’s goals and intended field(s) of study helps develop a personal plan for learning to guide progress even through multiple institutions and changes of the end goal.

The route between control points is not specified, but left entirely to the orienteer. Route choice and the ability to navigate through the forest are the essence of orienteering. Repeated experiences build expertise.

There may be many routes to a degree. Previous learning, cocurricular experiences, and personal abilities influence the choice of an advantageous route. Advising and the student’s own growing expertise will be compasses pointing the way to a degree. Routes that are too indirect can carry a heavy cost for individuals and society in terms of time, money, and talent wasted.

Other aspects of orienteering include early experiences in learning to read maps and interpret map symbols, and learning about specialized equipment.

Pre-college information about colleges, degree programs, certifications, careers, and work will help to prepare students for their paths through postsecondary education. Learning to “read and interpret” information about schools and degree programs (including the vocabulary of advanced learning) contributes to student independence. Advisors must stay up-to-date on changes in educational “terrain” and “equipment” in order to ensure continued, accurate advising.

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