Fletcher- Week 4- University Academic Advising Center

Activities:

•     Observed and aided one-on-one academic advising sessions.
•     Met with current students during on-site meetings and discussed their upcoming goals while attending school at Mississippi State University.
•     Explained and suggested many on-campus resources to incoming freshmen.
•     Sat with and encouraged confused, undecided students and helped demystify the major and minor selection process.
•     Gave advise, information, and directions over the phone to out-of-town students.
•     Met and talked with my supervisor and other academic advisers to better understand the academic advising process

Reflection:

    This week, I set in on a total of 8 individual academic advising sessions. Each session was very different from the others. More importantly, each student's personality and goals were vastly different than the other students'. Some students depend on their parents to talk for them and make decisions with them when deciding what major to aim for or what classes to take. Some students come in on their own without any idea of any classes they are interested in taking. They simply want a general schedule. Most students, though, come in independently with a couple of majors in mind. Each student is assisted in a unique way. Each session is genuinely tailored to the the student's needs and goals. If a student is confused about what he or she wants to major in or have a career in later in life, I always give him or her the Career Center's number and encourage them to make an appointment to talk to someone about it. Also, a student spoke about feeling depressed and hopeless for not declaring a major yet. I gave her the number for the Counseling Center and highly encouraged her to talk to someone over there about it. Student affairs should be a supportive network for students. This is why I am so determined to refer students to other needed departments.

     I noticed that I felt slightly drained after each session. I think this is because I learn so much in each session. For instance, in one of the sessions, I learned a lot about pre-engineering and how is it very different than other concentrations. Concentration-specific classes must be completed with a C grade or higher and a specific GPA must be obtained before a student can be eligible for acceptance into each variety of engineering. In another session, I learned about academic forgiveness and retroactively withdrawing from a semester. Students in these type of sessions are usually a lot more anxious and jittery. Counseling skills such as summarizing and active listening have helped me in these situations. Mississippi State does a spectacular job of demonstrating compassion when students fall under extenuating circumstances. However, there is a lot of paperwork and signatures that go into academic forgiveness and retroactive withdrawing. Our job at UAAC is to careful guide the student through this process and restore hope that other options are available when unfortunate stations arrive. In every academic advising session, finding open sections of freshman-level courses is difficult. Advisers do the best they can to provide the student with 15 hours for the Fall semester worth of classes they may actually enjoy or need. This task is a lot more difficult then I had imagined. "Course hunting" (stalking courses until a section opens up) becomes a real activity that advisers recommend to students. I happen to think course hunting will better prepare the student for future semesters of course registration. An adviser will not always be there to guide the student through the registration process or to create an alternate course plan. Hunting for courses is a great way to expand the student's critical thinking skills in this area. In another session, I learned about course auditing. This was a new concept to me, but I can see where auditing a class may be helpful for aiding a student's discovery of a major without investing a great deal of money or time.

    Other than advising, I spend time at my desk assisting students over the phone. Many have questions about transfer credits. Others are trying to many an appointment to meet with their adviser. I help with both of these tasks regularly. I have finally conquered using the copier machine and how to transfer calls to other phone lines. These were difficult for me in the beginning. When there are no phone calls or students in the office, I spend time reading the Chronicle and "job surfing". I feel like an adult! :)

-Kimberly