Use of AC Cafe by international students during onboarding at Algonquin College.

Algonquin College is committed to “growing and maintaining international student enrolments” (Annual Report 2022-23, 18). With international students forming 21% of the student body in 2022-23 (the most recent available figures), the College is invested in

successfully attracting and integrating international students into its programs. Since onboarding is the students’ first sustained engagement with the college, Algonquin College has an interest in ensuring the onboarding experience of international students is designed to address their unique needs as newcomers to Canada.

AC Cafe is one of the online resources that new students, including international students, can access as part of their onboarding experience. It is a self-directed, voluntary course available through Brightspace, the College’s learning management system, is “designed to help [students] prepare for college during the months leading up to [their]first day. Rather than try to take everything in and get everything set up while also starting classes, [they] can find out important information ahead of time”(Algonquin College, “AC Cafe”). The course includes 17 individual modules that have between 1 and 18 sub-sections each, including one module with 12 sub-sections targeting international students. Students receive digital badges for completing each module and are entered into a draw for a $100 gift card for

every badge achieved.

Despite AC Cafe’s role to help students “find out important information ahead of time,”

In this project, I was in charge of creating a journey map that depicted the journey of an international student onboarding at Algonquin College, allowing my team and I to clearly identify the pain points throughout.

The following journey map communicates the story of two new international students at Algonquin College, one who is aware of AC Cafe and the other who is not aware of AC Cafe.