For My Final Design Proposal, I Am Going to Create a Survival Guide for University And

For My Final Design Proposal, I Am Going to Create a Survival Guide for University And

CMNS 325

Kevin Lee301029721

For my final design proposal, I am going to create a survival guide for university and college students. The survival guide will be in the form of a foldout pamphlet for easy reading and will have at least 10 tips that will help any student who has bad self-control be able to survive a bit easier than they would if they did not have guidance.

The reason why I am making this survival guide is because throughout the years at SFU, I have seen my friends get kicked out of school and have even came close to it myself. And the reasons for them being in those circumstances were because they either were not properly prepared for some of the situations university life threw at them or they simply did not care. Therefore, the objectives and intended uses of this survival guide are to help students stay in school, enjoy university or college life, and most importantly, graduate.

Universities such as Concordia in Montreal have just over 54 percent of students having a degree in hand after full-time studying for six years (Vancouver Sun, 2006). In Ontario, the degree completion rate was about 75 percent, whereas Alberta’s degree completion rate was just 66 percent (Vancouver Sun, 2006). But why does this happen? Aside from financial, social, and personal factors, University of Waterloo determined that students who had been admitted with an average below 75 percent, failed to graduate within seven years. Simon Fraser University has also tracked completion rates by high-school averages at admission. Starting from those who began their studies in 1999, “only 42.7 percent of students with a grade point average of less than 3.0 at admission had completed an SFU degree within seven years…conversely, among students admitted with a GPA of 3.75 or greater, 81.3 percent had an SFU degree in hand within seven years” (Vancouver Sun, 2006). Furthermore, among those with GPAs between 3.0 and 3.24, their completion rate was 64.2 percent, GPAs between 3.25 and 3.49, their completion rate was 68.2 percent, and GPAs between 3.5 and 3.74 had a completion rate of 77.6 percent(Vancouver Sun, 2006).

However, although there seems to be a correlation between high-school average admissions and degree-completion rates, my design will be aimed at trying to help most university and collegestudents who are affected by financial, personal, and social factors. While being accompanied by graphics, I will be including tips to success such as 1. Where your money at?, 2. Time is money, Don’t waste it, 3. Don’t Cram, 4. Know what is expected 5. Drop a class, or fail your semester, your pick 6.Manage your priorities, Work before Play 7. Know your limit, Play within it (alcohol/drugs), 8. Want to be successful? You need to first take care of yourself, 9. Stop being emo, Get help 10. Be careful with relationships (NewsBlaze). The reason why I selectively chose these words were to attract a younger audience and motivate them to act. Furthermore, as “the medium is the message” (Manghani, Piper, & Simons, 2006, p.246), the medium here being the pamphlet, it would clearly give tips on how to better increase a troubled college or university student’s chance of graduation.

As for the design process, I researched on signage and tried to use universally known signs and incorporate them together, forging new meanings. Romanyshyn also thought that “human consciousness changes according to the media in which we are immersed” (Manghani, Piper, & Simons, 2006, p.170), so it made me think that, theoretically, if we were to immerse ourselves constantly with images that warned us of consequences, it would lessen the chance of us making the mistakes. Therefore, if we had survival guides like this, I would hope that it would encourage students to act accordingly and help them graduate.

Works Cited

Manghani, S., Piper, A. & Simons, J. (2006).Images: A Reader. London: Sage Publications Ltd

Newsblaze (2007), College Dropout Rate Climbs as Students Face Challenges; Life Coach Offers College Tips to Success.Retrieved from

The Vancouver Sun (2006, October 31).Universities adopting different strategies to cut high dropout rates.The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from 4e8a-be69-c8986a34837d&k=95908