How It Works
The Fidelis Difference
One of the first lessons everyone entering the military learns, is backwards planning. You begin an operation with the end in mind, and if you don’t know where you’re trying to go, chances are you’ll never get there.
Fidelis follows the backwards planning principle strictly, starting with a deep understanding of the needs of employers.
We think of the employers we work with as as our most important customers, and we consider their repeatedly hiring our alumni as our most important objective. The rest of the Fidelis difference flows from that core prioritization.
Fidelis only works with top quality, innovative teaching partners.
No matter the program, we’re committed to partnering with only the very best institutions and teachers possible. For our graduates to be superlative, as demanded by our hiring partners, Fidelis students must prepare themselves with the best faculty, universities, and training possible. We do not half-step, and we don’t compromise on quality. We expect the same of our students.
There are many great universities, and we're working to build placement relationships with all of them. Join the network to stay informed as we announce new partnerships, both with teaching partners and with universities and companies committed to recruit qualified Fidelis students.
Fidelis technology is modern and social.
Social
Until the web went social with Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Twitter, online learning was bound to stink. After all, learning is a fundamentally social experience. But in the last decade, what's possible online has changed dramatically. For the first time, we can meaningfully connect students to one another, as well as to teachers, mentors, proteges, and to their ultimate career objectives. These connections give learning context and make your accomplishments more meaningful.
Blended Learning
Regardless of how great technology can be, a computer screen is small, and the world is large. A lot of learning needs to be hands-on and most people still don’t develop deep friendships online. Every Fidelis program works to blend the best of online and on-campus learning to ensure that students have top-flight outcomes.
Every student is on a personalized pathway.
"Education often dislocates people from their natural talents. And human resources are like natural resources, they’re buried deep"
Sir Ken Robinson, TED
The best teachers have always tailored their lessons. They’ve listened to their students and tried to bring out their best qualities. It's difficult enough for an excellent teacher to do this for a classroom full of students; it’s virtually impossible to scale this kind of personalization across hundreds.
Fidelis’s technology allows us to personalize almost every aspect of the learning experience according to the student’s long-term objectives.
Students choose:
- What they study: by choosing an appropriate program and by queueing up learning applications that are critical to their objectives.
- Who they study with: by choosing their transition coach, building their own personal advisory board of mentors, and forming their own learning teams.
- Where and when they study: by trying to be as asynchronous as the learning objectives allow, though we do require some synchronous activities when necessary.
We support students by leveraging Fidelis's connections on their behalf.
Military folks are raised in the world’s most effective bureaucracy, where meritocracy is the norm--at least the military strives for it to be so. There’s a security you have when wearing a uniform. You know how things work. You know who does what. And when you show up at a new unit, you neatly plug in to a well functioning network for getting things done.
That simplicity doesn’t exist in the civilian economy. It’s messier. It’s often a lot more flexible but also frequently, less meritocratic. Getting things done in most civilian industries takes relationships and trust, as well as merit. All of these take time to build.
Fidelis has invested in trusted referral relationships with colleges, companies, and mentors to help our students accelerate their own professional network development. It will still take you time to build your network, but we help you get started by vouching for our students with honest and transparent recommendations. This effort can get the door open, but it will only stay open if our graduates perform well.
So our grads have a responsibility to those who follow them to be exceptional.
