Finding a way through school and career choices can feel tough, but students don’t have to do it alone. Group advising workshops bring students together to share ideas and support each other. Learning with peers can make it easier to face challenges and stay motivated.

Group advising helps students build key skills they’ll use for life, their personal and workplace success skills. These include teamwork, communication, and speaking up for themselves and others. These are the same skills that lead to success in future jobs and in their civic life.

What Group Advising Can Look Like:

• SMART Goal-Setting Workshop

  Students set clear goals for their education and career plans using the SMART framework. They share their goals, give feedback, and talk about action steps and tools that will help them succeed.

• Compare and Contrast Careers Workshop

  Students explore different jobs, industries, and roles to help them make decisions about their futures. They talk about jobs they’ve had and ones they’d like to have. Together, they look at the pros and cons of different occupations.

• Interviewing Skills Workshop

  Students practice communication, presenting themselves, and answering common interview questions. Learners interview each other and provide structured feedback, increasing their confidence and propping each other up. 

More Examples of Group Advising

• The Inspiring Career Development and Action Curriculum Guide incorporates peer learning, offering opportunities for students to explore and plan for careers while building teamwork, communication, and leadership skills. For example, in the lesson “Learning About Your Classmates”, students interview one another about their work experiences. These stories can spark ideas and inspire next steps in their own career journeys.
• To integrate group workshops into your larger advising program, check out Effective Practices Aligned with Indicator of Program Quality 7 (IPQ 7). This guide helps you create or strengthen a program-wide approach to advising that connect peers, raise career awareness, and strengthen academic skills through group workshops and other complementary strategies.

Build Your Skills with Upcoming Professional Development

Join one of our upcoming professional development sessions to build your skills with group advising:

• Art of Advising (January 2026): 

  Learn core advising skills, including how to design and lead group advising workshops.

• Building an Advising Curriculum (April 2026): 

  Learn how to plan an advising scope and sequence that includes group advising workshops as a core feature.