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Coming from a high school class of 36, Adam Christiansen found college life to be a big adjustment. Today, the 2013 alum is leveraging that experience in his role as an academic navigator in the Explore Center, helping students get acclimated to campus and find success in all areas of life as a Husker.
The Explore Center is the academic advising home for students who are undecided on a major, pre-health, pre-law, or pre-engineering, and academic navigators serve undergraduate scholars who may be experiencing barriers. Years before he began working with students in the Explore Center, Christiansen was a first-year Husker from a small town trying his best to navigate college. Coming to Lincoln from Pender, Nebraska, he realized that building one-on-one connections would be his best path to success — and making campus feel a little bit smaller.
“Coming to UNL ended up being a great fit for me, but it was just way bigger than what I was used to,” he said. “Getting connected with people and just asking for help when I needed it was what made this place feel like home.”
Appreciating the value of one-on-one connections is a lesson he’s still carrying with him today, and one that’s powering his mission as an academic navigator to help Huskers create a positive, supported college experience.
“Our main role is to reduce barriers for students,” Christiansen said. “College is hard. As academic navigators, our job is to get students connected with all the different resources that we have on campus that fit their needs.”
From mental health services to academic support and financial resources, Christiansen and his academic navigator teammates help students navigate to everything Nebraska has to offer that eases the burden of college life. Students can set up in-person meetings with their college’s academic navigator or just text back and forth with them to address their needs.
In Christiansen’s case, when a Husker needs a specific bit of support, he’s likely to walk them straight to the people who can help.
“It’s really important to me that students know that they don’t have to go through hard things by themselves,” he said. “We already know all these great people that can help you, so sometimes I’m with a student and just like, ‘Hey, let’s just go over to their office right now and I’ll introduce you.’”
He's helped students make connections with the wider Lincoln community, too. That was part of his own small-town to big-city experience and he wants to smooth that transition for students in the same position he was in.
"Coming from a small town, I had to work through that overwhelming feeling of being in a new city," he said. "For me, it's all about breaking down those barriers to get you comfortable with life as a Husker. From there, we can help you really take off.”
