Hi Laurie, I try from all directions to encourage my students and to instill in them that they can and will succeed. I have had students to tell me that I have more faith in them than they have in themselves. There are many mini projects that we do in my professional development class that allow students to increase their confidence level, such as developing a portfolio all about them, professional dress every thursday, comments from me about their professionalism, etc. I too treat the classroom as the students' future work sites. Everything in my class is related to the professional world. I constantly tell my students the classroom is where you learn all about the workplace. Students must fully understand why they are taking a particular class, and how the class is going to help them in their career. Patricia