Questions about SSD?

To see descriptions of several sessions by students, go to "Testimonials."

If you have other questions, please contact us: "Contact SSD."

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A Member of the Minnesota State Colleges & Universities

Testimonials

Surveys of students usually show that 70-90% consider Student Success Day "good" to "excellent." Here are some things that individual students had to say.

About the Keynote Speeches:

Shawn Pederson said, "The keynote speaker holds the world record for the fastest time spent canoeing down the Mississippi and Amazon Rivers . In his presentation he taught us about determination , courage, and hard work. I am glad I saw it . It taught me a lot about life--that it's not always fair , but if we work hard through it , life has some amazing rewards.

Tamara Hill said, "I really enjoyed how the keynote speaker told a bunch of little stories and each story had some sort of life lesson to learn."

Shay Pobanz said, "The speaker's talk about courage was very motivational. It is easy to pretend that you are someone else, but it takes courage to be you. It was a good kick in the pants to remember that I can accomplish more than I give myself credit for."

Michele Richter said, "The keynote speaker says the ability to handle delayed gratification is the best indicator for success. A study , he says, in which children could have one marshmallow today or wait until tomorrow and have three revealed the correlation. And he says our being in college shows we are delaying gratification. I found him to very entertaining and felt lucky he shared his insights with us."

Laura Brown said, "The speaker had many challenges such as birth defects , being kicked out of school , and flunking out of college. Overall, I liked him very much as a speaker. Instead of just pumping us full of enthusiasm, he gave a lot of insight."

About Individual Sessions

Dave Berger's "What To Do if Your Teacher Sucks": Ben Frieman said that this session "taught me that your success in a class can greatly increase if you take the time to investigate the class’s structure, teacher, and other important details."

Margie Rask's "Yoga" class: Meng Vang said, "I really liked doing yoga; I might even consider taking classes soon."

Julie Stenberg's "Test Anxiety" session: Vang said, "I decided to take this class because sometimes I do get nervous before a test. I learned where some of our anxiety comes from and some tips on how to better prepare myself for a test. The good news is that test anxiety is not genetic."