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Starfish for students

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Contact Information

Hours

MCC-Blue River
Education Center, room 134
br.advisor@mcckc.edu

MCC-Longview
Enrollment Center
lv.advisor@mcckc.edu

MCC-Maple Woods
Administration Building, room 108
mw.advisor@mcckc.edu

MCC-Online
MCC-Penn Valley, Learning Resources, room 302
on.advisor@mcckc.edu

MCC-Penn Valley
Student Enrollment Center, SEC 001
pv.advisor@mcckc.edu

The support you'll need at MCC will change over time and be unique to your needs as you grow, learn, and advance toward your educational goals.

Starfish can be a powerful tool to help achieve your ultimate success. The platform makes it easy for you to connect with your advisor and faculty, whether about a particular course, an advising question or a general concern.

Three things students should do in Starfish

  1. Set up your profile
    Make it easier for your instructors and advisors to get to know you and stay in contact. Your MCC student ID photo will be uploaded so they can recognize you.
  2. Connect to people who can help you
    Use your personalized My Success Network and Courses channels for quick access to contact information, appointment scheduling, and course help. Browse the services catalog if you can't find what you're looking for through your personalized channels.
  3. Stay on track
    Use your Dashboard to stay on top of upcoming appointments and recommendations from your instructors and advisors.

Set up your profile

Begin by setting up your student profile. Your profile lets instructors and advisors know who you are and how to contact you. It also gives you control over how you'd like to receive Starfish messages.

  1. Click your name in the top right corner of your home page to open your profile.
  2. Click on the arrow next to your name to open your profile.
    1. From here, you can customize your profile by choosing settings for appointment reminders. Your personal information will already be loaded in the system. You can also complete the Student Intake Form by clicking on the intake tab.
    2. If you choose, you can enter additional ways for Starfish messages to reach you, including an additional email address or your phone via SMS. Messages will always be sent to your MCC email.
    3. To have Starfish emails sent to your mobile phone (in addition to sending to your MCC email address), enter the email address of your mobile phone in the alternate email. Click the "both" button associated with "send my correspondence to" button.
    4. Note: This address will be a combination of your phone number plus carrier information. Click the "more information" icon for a list of common carriers and email address formats.
  3. Once you have made your desired changes to your profile, click the "submit" button to save your updates.

Connect to people who can help you

The My Success Network, and Courses channels display the people and offices that are available to help you succeed. Here you can find key contact information as well as links to websites and online appointment scheduling.

My Success Network

Your personalized My Success Network will appear on the homepage when you log in to Starfish. This network lists the people and resources that are available to assist you. (You can browse a broader list of available services in the Service Catalog). For each person or service listed you will find contact information, supporting websites, and, if online scheduling is enabled, a link to make an appointment. If a service includes a waiting room for walk-in appointments, you can click the "Waiting Room" link to find out how many students are currently in line.

Services

Certain individuals may be listed in your personal Success Network channel, but other individuals and offices can be found in the broader Services catalog accessed from the top navigation bar. On this page you can search for a service or scroll through the list of available services. For each service you can view contact information, visit service websites, and schedule online appointments (if the office made them available).

Courses

Click the Courses icon on your tabs to display information about the courses you are enrolled in, including contact information for your instructors.

Make an appointment through Starfish

If an individual has made times available for you to schedule through Starfish, you will see a Schedule Appointment link in their contact information.

  1. Click the Schedule Appointment link for the desired person or service in the My Success Network or Courses
  2. Click on the arrow and select your reason for your appointment and then click continue.
    1. Use the small calendar on the left to quickly identify days with available office hours (available days will be shown in bold). Click the desired date in the small monthly calendar to display availability on that day.
    2. Choose the available time slots on the selected day that works for you and click continue.
    3. Review the information and click confirm to set the appointment. You will get an email with the appointment details and the appointment will be listed on your Dashboard.

Change an appointment

Upcoming appointments will be listed on your Dashboard in the time line view (left column). Click the edit icon (a picture of a pencil) to modify the appointment or the cancel icon (an X) to cancel it. If you do choose to cancel an appointment, please do so as far in advance as possible so the slot can be used by another student.

Stay on track

Use the tools in Starfish to help you keep track of your appointments and alerts from instructors and advisers.

Dashboard

Your Dashboard displays upcoming appointments and date-based tasks on the left to help you plan your week. The right hand column of your Dashboard highlights items that require your attention and may include alerts related to your class work, recommended referrals to campus support offices to help you succeed, and Kudos from your instructors.

Navigation icons:

Flags: Things you need to improve to succeed

Kudos: Positive notices to keep up the good work

Referral: Directs a student to make an appointment or visit a particular service on campus

To-Do: Directs a student to complete a specific action, for example completing a career skills inventory or registering for a study skills seminar

Messages

Click the Messages icon on your homepage to display messages sent to you in Starfish. Click on any message in the list to display the full contents of that message. These messages were also sent to your MCC email and to any alternate address you added to your profile.

Degree planner

Student success requires a plan. Starfish Degree Planner, the academic planning module of the Starfish platform, makes it possible for you to obtain a proactive, personalized, step-by-step road map to the finish line, even as your goals and circumstances change. Contact your advisor in you My Success Network to start building your plan. All first time freshman will be required to complete a degree plan with their academic advisor.