Focus Collegiate is pleased to announce the expansion of its support services for college students with complex learning profiles into Summer with a four-week college-readiness experience July 18-August 15. In-person in Boston and virtually across the country, the Summer Cohort addresses the academic, life, digital literacy, and independent living skills necessary for a smooth transition to college.

Student-defined goals create the framework for student success at Focus Collegiate. As Summer Cohort Student Skills Specialist Shawna Graichen describes the approach, “Supporting individual self-determination is the core of the Summer Cohort and of all of our work at Focus Collegiate. We get a sense of what students want for themselves and help them get there. It’s a unique process for each person.”

In the Summer Cohort, students participate in classes designed to assess and enrich their existing skills. Interdisciplinary coursework includes study skills, test-taking strategies, note-taking and research methods, and the mastery of course management systems, digital literacy, and self-directed learning environments. Cohort Activities include simulated group projects, group and individual class participation practice. Students learn peer editing techniques, how to do a presentation, and lecture survival strategies. Together students explore and strengthen self-care practices including budgeting, shopping for, and preparing healthy meals.

As they build strengths, students gain self-awareness, make new friends, and develop the self-advocacy necessary to maintain the healthy routines required for the rigor of college life and beyond. 

About Focus Collegiate

Through its Collegiate Virtual, Summer Cohort, and academic-year services Focus Collegiate provides dynamic, individualized support for college students with learning differences. Working on campus and virtually in the skill areas of academics, executive functioning, life-skills, and social integration, Focus Collegiate guides students as they transition to independence using the college experience as a launching pad to success in the classroom and in life. The team at Focus Collegiate, comprised of clinical social workers, therapists, counselors, learning specialists, and advocates, has collectively more than eight decades of experience working with young people in transition.