ASSET students will engage in various Drive to Thrive activities designed to enhance wellness, specifically financial literacy, intellectual, occupational, social-emotional, and physical/prosocial behaviors as well as student goal orientation, social and academic integration, interaction with faculty, and resilience to external pressures that promote attrition.

Surveys. ASSET students will complete a pre-activity survey, a post-activity survey, and then a final survey at the end of the semester.

Wellness modules emerged from the EDiCTS project and center around the need for AT students to improve their financial literacy skills and healthy, prosocial behaviors. Financial literacy skills are crucial for college students as they navigate the transition into adulthood and manage their finances independently (see Lusardi, 2019). Understanding concepts such as budgeting, debt management, investing, and saving is essential for their long-term financial well-being (see Wolla, 2017). For healthy behaviors, the initial EDiCTS participants described their struggles with healthy behaviors and choices – such as clean driving records and responsible substance use. Specifically for ASSET students, they will lose their internship and be removed from the ASSET program if they incur points on their license. Nationally, mental health and substance abuse are issues for all college students – including community college students (see Sontag-Padilla et al., 2023). Developing an understanding of healthy behaviors and coping strategies are critical for community college student success. 

Goal-setting will ask students to define a set of academic, work, and social goals and encourage a subsequent meeting with their advisor/counselor every semester where they will receive information on how to navigate their future career and utilize available opportunities and support to reach these goals. This activity is a form of intellectual and occupational health.  It is predicted to enhance student goal commitment (Halpin, 1990) and to allow students to benefit from more intensive academic advisement (Hatch & Garcia, 2017). Results from this activity will be used to inform the wellness modules. 

Learning self-assessment requires students to perform an annual written self-assessment of their weaknesses and strengths in relation to their future career as an automotive technician. Students will then meet with a faculty/instructor or an internship mentor to discuss how the ASSET program can be improved to better support their success. This element is related to intellectual, occupational, and social-emotional health and has been documented to enhance success (Mertes, 2015). Results from this activity will be used to inform the wellness modules. 

Evaluative cohort-gathering and focus group supports the social integration of students and aims to increase social- emotional health by attending a one-hour cohort after they complete the wellness modules. This gathering will allow students to develop peer support networks and identify interpersonal resources and coping strategies that will promote persistence. Such peer interaction has been demonstrated to enhance learning and increase GPA in college populations (Lundberg, 2014), thus indirectly promoting retention.   

Activities scholarships for community college students are provided to encourage participation and reward the time taken to complete the activities. We know that community college students often lack the financial resources needed to persist toward degree completion compared to those attending 4-year institutions (see Mayhew et al., 2016). However, community college students who receive small grants are more likely to persist (see Nguyen et al., 2019) than those who solely rely on taking out loans and working full-time (see Sommers, 2003).