Concern about graduation rates in higher education has led universities to offer courses that help students develop success skills. Scientist Life Skills, a new course for freshman at Florida A&M University, focuses on helping students matriculate into majors via development of growth mindset, grit, and critical thinking. Here, we assessed the outcomes of this course and explored the associations between building life skills and student success. A series of mindset, grit, and critical-thinking assessment measures were used to collect data before and after the course. Our results showed that the new course achieved its intended goals of providing STEM students with a set of tools that help them seamlessly transition into the university and successfully matriculate through their majors. Specifically, the course design significantly moved students toward a growth-mindset, increased their critical thinking, and their second-semester grade point averages (GPAs). This model life skills course can be adopted in non-STEM areas as well.