Center for Academic Progress is Now in Your Home

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Published on April 28, 2020

Every student could use a little help during this time, especially if you’re graduating from high school, but how in the world can students access this help? The campus is closed, we’re supposed to stay indoors, the sky is falling — how could this get any better? Everything is available online, of course! Student Services is available 24/7 via the Housatonic website, no matter what you need help with.

The Center for Academic Progress (CAP) is one thing available under Student Services, and specializes in getting new students ready for placement testing and intensive classes. Step one is placement testing, or Accuplacer. Currently, Accuplacer testing is not taking place, so this service is unavailable. HCC will be announcing how new students will be able to access this information online soon, and CAP will go back to providing this service prior to placement exams.

After placement exams have taken place, CAP assists via online programs to help students with their reading and math skills. These programs are called “Refresher Programs” and the available programs are iMath, iEnglish, Jumpstart Math and Jumpstart English.

Andrew Pelletier, the Director of CAP, encourages current students to take these Refresher Programs as well, saying “[Those] who have not taken a math or English class are actually eligible to start one of these programs anytime and they can do so by contacting me.”

The big chunk of work that CAP does is to assist students that are enrolled in intensive courses. Currently, CAP has 284 enrolled students in English 092i, English 094i and Math 095i. Pelletier explains how he’s able to keep in touch with the students, saying “We have contacted all those students multiple times by email and phone to make sure they can access their coursework.” CAP is also doing live video chat via Microsoft Teams and emailing students constantly. Current CAP students should have no problem accessing all their academic needs, as they’ve all been addressed by now.

If you’ve ever been interested in CAP, there’s no need to worry about getting the help you need. Everyone is going through these tough times together, and we’re all finding ways to improvise. Andrew Pelletier and all of CAP is doing their best to provide the help their students need, and it’s rather simple to access. Microsoft Teams is being utilized by plenty of classes, as well as WebEx. We can all get through this together, and remember to ask for help whenever and wherever, as help is much closer than you think it is.