The facts: CHASS has implemented a program where a panel of graduate students helps students with academic advising. Students can discuss topics such as intra-campus transfer, registration procedures, the GEP requirements and strategies to battle academic difficulty.
Our opinion: The individual colleges should follow CHASS’s initiative and provide this resource to its students. Such a system could be the solution the University has been looking for to solve the problem of a flawed advising system.
The ever-present battle in the University is the attempts at improving the advising process. This fight is not only to inform and aid students in their paths towards graduation, but also to maximize the efficiency of reaching out to them. CHASS is using a pilot program aimed at preparing students for their advisor meetings. Students are able to speak with someone who has walked the path and knows the obstacles that might stand in their way, and are able to offer insight into planning courses. Such a program would benefit students and advisors in other colleges.
The current advising system has been torn apart by constant bad attitudes and even worse experiences. The reason for this flawed system of advising stems from a lack of quality time with an advisor and lack of useful information clearly defined for students. Extending this program would fix this and keep students informed while giving them the extra time to ask pertinent questions.
According to the Undergraduate Student Success forum, this program was offered to all colleges across N.C. State, but CHASS was the only one to jump on the opportunity. Students who have participated have spoken in favor of the program, claiming it saves time for the advisors and provides valuable, applicable advice on planning courses. The high accolades of this program obviously support a motion for colleges across the University to follow CHASS’s leadership.
The colleges need to realize the importance of having a chance to improve student knowledge of their degree progress. The responsibility of managing multiple students’ degree requirements cannot fall solely on the shoulders of the few advisors. The use of graduate students to create a formalized system could prove to be an overall improvement within the advising system, only if they were given the right tools for the job.
Colleges should look to their graduate students as another resource to help undergraduate students. Graduate students will benefit by getting a stipend and learning interpersonal skills and undergraduate students get a one-on-one meeting on their own time and their own terms. It is a win-win situation and utilizes resources that are already present within each college. The graduate students who participate in this program are hired as graduate assistants with a stipend for their work. However they are denied the basic access to tools that could better improve a more individualized meeting. This access could build up to a system where these graduate assistants act as the middle man between the student and adviser, where the assistant could provide the basic answers to questions that not only prepare students for their meeting, but save time for all involved. You can never have enough resources to help a student’s academic success, and at this point those are the only resources not costing students an arm and a leg.
