The trouble with advisors

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Scott Andrew Schulz

As we are still early in the semester, still bombarded with horrifying overviews of classes and taxed until our poor bleeding hands can no longer write any more checks for textbooks and rising tuition costs, this seems the perfect time to address the problematic issue of advising. It is a problem that has plagued the leaders of this university since the school's population exploded and millions of anxious young people packed their bags for life in the scorching desert.

Although this problem has been obvious for at least 30 years, the advising situation at the UA is quite possibly more unorganized now then it has ever been. Don't get too excited either: The future only looks worse unless someone finally takes action.

Take, for example, the number of advisors you will have had by the time you graduate college. As a freshman, you begin your academic career with your first advisor from the Freshman Year Center. This person explains how much fun college is going to be for the next six years and motivates you to believe that taking as many general classes as possible is a good idea in order to help you determine which degree path you should eventually follow.

Of course, you know little as to what it is you actually need to graduate, so you sign up for "Survey of Reading" in order to boost your G.P.A. from the get go. Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions, this advisor you share with thousands of other incoming freshmen, has sent you on your way to discovering a frustrating reality.

Once you finish your freshman year, the madness is really set into motion. Should you be fortunate enough to pull off a B in "Survey of Reading" you might find yourself a member of the Honors program. At this point, it would make sense to believe that once this status is achieved, life becomes much simpler and you are rewarded with an advisor to help guide you through your university days.

Not even close.

You see, your honors advisor only assigns you a certain number of really difficult classes and a 400-page thesis that must be produced by the time you graduate. Should you have any questions about your major, you must find a "major" advisor. So, without any idea of what classes to take, you go in search of this fabled being.

Should you find an overworked professor willing to give you three minutes of his or her time, your prayers have been answered. Well, almost.

It is during this meeting that you are told to find a "minor" advisor to take care of your required minor. Also, you cannot be too quick to think that your major is taken care of for advisors are only temporary and, as in my case, they tend to leave for other universities. Thus, be prepared to have at least two major advisors, neither of which will ever know who you are unless they run across your name in Police Beat.

All right, you would think that this ridiculous list of advisors is complete. But, there is still one more academic advisor I have failed to mention. Since the university has its own set of general education requirements, you must also pay a visit to the general education

department. It is here that you learn "Survey of Reading" is worth nothing toward your major, your minor or even your college degree. You tell this advisor that so and so from the "Freshman Year Center" said the class was a good idea, but your temporary "gen-ed" advisor for this session (and this session alone) has, of course, never heard of the person at the Freshman Year Center because none of the advisors have any communication whatsoever.

And the administration wonders why the retention rate is so low? As members of this university, it seems fairly obvious that the current system needs a serious overhaul. Building a new multimillion dollar Freshman Year Center is not going to help anything as far as advising is concerned, but our administration has failed to recognize this fact.

Thus, we have a gigantic hole in the middle of the UA Mall. Isn't it time to devise a system where real relationships can be developed between students and faculty over the course of a student's college career? If students had only one reliable advisor that they could turn

to for advice on classes and academic questions, do you think they might feel more like actual students rather than numbers and be more inspired to succeed? Adopting this new process of advising would vastly improve the academic lives of students at this institution.

I assure you, the advising process would be much more beneficial and, best of all, you would never again have to hear a barrage of advisors carelessly ask "what is your name?"