Navigate Cerritos is a new system that links faculty, advisors, staff and students in a coordinated network designed to help students as they weave their way through college starting with registration, meeting with advisors, scheduling classes, applying for financial aid and other tasks leading to graduation.

The Navigate system is made up of three main components, smart guidance, strategic care, and intelligence.

School officials have indicated that the smart guidance component will revolutionize the Cerritos experience for students. Students will have a centralized location for information and action.

The Navigate Cerritos system is intended to be more clear and easier to go through while making the best use of the students time.

The system is meant to guide students as they go from one level and on to the next. And it may also provide simplified pathways to completion.

Navigate Cerritos could let students stay on track through this sometimes arduous process by accessing their “To-Do” list.

The to-do list will prompt students through various steps, like enrollment, scheduling appointments, registering for classes, meeting with advisors, discovering school sponsored events on campus, viewing schedules, understanding tuition costs and when to apply for financial aid.

Another aspect of the Navigate Cerritos system is the ability to connect with classmates virtually. Students will be able to search individual classmates or communicate with the entire group.

The ‘My Major’ feature of Navigate gives students the ability to compare their interests and goals with the available degree and certificate programs.

According to the Navigate team, students will be able to do side by side comparisons of program information, such as employment information, required classes or typical salary ranges.

The second component, ‘strategic care’ is the area of Navigate Cerritos that will be utilized by faculty and staff. Here staff will be able to manage appointments and support networks.

Strategic care will also allow staff the ability to target outreach and intervention through advanced searches.

Navigate Cerritos could let college administrators better communicate with students by sending out notifications and reminders about important tasks and requirements necessary to progress and graduate.

‘Intelligence’ is the third component of the Navigate Cerritos system. This is where school officials will be able to gather statistical data, such as predictive analytics and student success data in real time.

At the Faculty Senate meeting on May 11, 2021, Rosa Prado, Dean of Counseling services, said “this system will make generating reports really easy.

As we all know, sometimes we have had challenges in terms of where we get data. Navigate Cerritos will eliminate that issue altogether. We can also evaluate students success.”

“We believe this is a very exciting project for our students and for our faculty here at the college,” said Dilcia D. Perez, Vice President of Student Services. It was a team of the college’s personnel that has worked diligently to get the system up and ready for launch.

At the end of April, about 3,000 students received an email giving them an opportunity to see the app and explore how it works.

The college implementation plan indicates that Navigate Cerritos will be fully operational by the Summer and fall of 2022.

The various components will be implemented one at a time until full operation is achieved. “There’s about eight features that will be rolling out in the future,” said Yvette Tayfoya, Dean of Enrollment Services, at the Faculty senate meeting.