Furman Student Says Pathways Should Be an Optional "College 101" Course.
Carter Ozburn '27 challenges the University's decision to make Pathways mandatory and the effectiveness of data collection on student opinions.
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Welcome to Perspectives on Pathways — a compilation of interviews intended to make public a wide array of viewpoints on Furman’s two-year advising initiative.
This week, we bring you the perspective of Carter Ozburn, a junior Politics and Business major, and former Editor in Chief of The Paladin, Furman’s student newspaper.
Ozburn evaluates different elements of The Pathways Program, including the CliftonStrengths test, career preparation, and academic rigor. While he finds some parts of the program useful, he generally thinks it ought to serve as an optional “college 101,” rather than a mandatory class. Ozburn also questions the effectiveness of the University’s data collection on the program.
Read Ozburn’s full interview below.
What do you think of Pathways?
I think it’s college 101, it should be one semester, and it should be optional. The curriculum is beneficial, I think, to first-generation students who don’t come from a collegiate background or international students who might be at a cultural disadvantage, but forcing every student to go through it for two years is just a ploy to game the U.S. News and World Report rankings. I just don’t think it’s that beneficial.
I also don’t think it makes sense that the mandatory second year is career focused. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but those resources are available through the Malone Center or the Cothran Center; students just have to actively seek them out, instead of being forced to seek them out. I think that you can provide the necessary information in a mandatory session or two freshman year, and it doesn’t need to be a two year class.
Recently, Jeff Selingo published a book called Dream School, in which he specifically praised Pathways. Why do outside observers evaluate Pathways so highly, when significant numbers of students seem to disapprove of the program?
I have no idea. I think it contributes to the perception we try to cultivate—we’re an innovative college, we’re very sustainable, our campus is gorgeous, etc. I also think they view it as the stepping stone to internships, study away, and certain career objectives. They see it as college 101 and then a launching pad for a career—who wouldn’t want that? In reality though, it should be college 101 for those who need it, and that career advising should be left to those who do it professionally, through the resources which have always been available to students.
What has The Paladin’s reporting on Pathways uncovered in the last year?
We reported on it a lot like when they made the program mandatory. There were tons of “I hate Pathways” op-eds. Eventually we had to be like, “ok, let’s not write the same article every semester.” We did include it in Clay Wallace’s 2025 Administration Approval Survey, which came out two semesters ago. [Quote from survey: “A large, 46% plurality of students expressed disapproving of how the administration managed academic affairs this year. Among the small number of respondents who addressed this issue in the explanation of their responses, Pathways was commonly criticised as negatively affecting academic life.”]
That survey wasn’t focused on Pathways though. It packaged the program along with a wide variety of issues related to the administration. Of course, many students disapproved of the program, but we haven’t done express reporting on it, just out of fear of being redundant.
Pathways’s curriculum makes use of the CliftonStrengths test. What is your appraisal of the test?
I think CliftonStrengths are helpful to a point. My strengths were entirely strategic thinking and interpersonal skills, which is good to know. It’s also good to know that I don’t have a single executive leadership strength. The actual reports from Gallup about one’s strengths are very helpful because they generate potential career options and ways that one should market oneself. I feel like I had no concept of how to do that until very recently. It’s also nice to have words and reports to back up what you’re saying in an interview, so you don’t feel like you’re overselling yourself or giving a biased report of your own ability.
I’ve heard that students sometimes treat their results as binding identifiers, rather than as tools for self-knowledge and improvement. Is that kind of thinking common?
I certainly think it’s common. It seems like a locus of control kind of thing—all of the circumstances around me, all my natural strengths, dictate that I should go here and do this. I should never compensate. But actually, you can change and improve. You should look at your weaknesses. I think that can differ from student to student, but I think that is certainly a pitfall of CliftonStrengths. The idea that you should never go for any leadership positions because the test didn’t assign you any leadership strengths isn’t necessarily true. You just might not be as naturally able to lead as others.
What do you want to see Pathways incorporate more of?
In my own personal experience, I’d like more alumni engagement. We were required to do an informational interview with an alum, and that was great. But there are so many Furman alumni that love Furman and want to pour into students, and I think it would be great if students were pushed to interact with them more.
I also think certain things like writing cover letters and resumes, no matter how much you try and tune that stuff out, is really important. It also gives workers at The Malone Center or The Cothran Center a bit of a break, if you can build a foundation in students early. Instead of starting from scratch junior year, they’ll have drafts they want to cater. Your career can take so much time, and it’s just hard to nail all that down. So I think any emphasis on pre-professional prep could only benefit students.
Do you have any sense of the survey and data-acquisition methods that the university uses to gauge student opinion about Pathways?
I believe that most of it comes from “snap evaluations” at the end of each Pathway session. Students aren’t allowed to leave until they do the survey. It’s usually three required questions and then two optional, free-response questions. Things like “Did you learn anything?” “What went well, what didn’t go well?” Usually students leave the free-response blank and just do the three required ones as quickly as possible. And that’s just not sound data collection. At least for the Gallup surveys [which is another way the university evaluates the program], students are positively incentivised. They push those surveys really hard, and a lot of students do them. I think the data collection should just be more comprehensive. The snap evaluation method is really bad. It’s hard to trust answers that were demanded in exchange for leaving during your lunch block.
How would you rate Pathways’s academic rigor?
It varies so much from instructor to instructor. I had an instructor who was really awesome and very much cared about Pathways and the students. That made it much a better experience. I hated the assignments and didn’t see the point of them, but I still did them and tried to do them well because I really loved my instructor, and I knew that she would be disappointed if I didn’t. So that can change a lot. But the rigor is nothing crazy. It’s mostly free responses, and how much you have to write varies. I know people who wrote bullet points instead of full sentences, and they still got 100s. I think that’s a problem.
Do you agree with the claim that Pathways is necessary to level the playing field for Furman students who are disadvantaged in one way or another?
I think it’s true that there are a number of Furman students that don’t get the Furman experience, whatever that may be—internships, study away, great student involvement, etc. I think student involvement revolves around the same kind of types of students, as sad as that is. The people getting the full Furman experience tend to be the same as the ones doing study away getting internships, and those are also the same folks that are club presidents and student leadership.
It’s really hard to say what causes that. I think Pathways attempts to make the full Furman experience available and push students towards it. But also, I think for some students it’s an effort issue. For other students I think it’s truly external, like in the case of an international student. I think Pathways is beneficial for them. But I also think, at the end of the day, students themselves have to put in a lot of effort, and that just doesn’t always happen.
Stay tuned! We will publish another perspective from a Furman community member periodically through the coming weeks!
We will also be conducting more interviews. So, if you are a student or faculty member who has experience with Pathways and would like to voice your perspective, please reach out to us at furmanfreespeech@gmail.com.
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