How can a student reach this point in the program without meeting the basic admission requirements? If we permit students to begin taking education classes, where is the line drawn beyond which the student cannot enroll in additional courses without meeting admission requirements? Do we, as advisors and educators, have a responsibility to help students meet the admission requirements? What approaches have been utilized and how effective are these strategies?
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Preparing students for a career is not higher education’s primary focus. However, the question is understandable. We expect an action to produce an outcome, a direction. “Undecided” insinuates unknowing, and unknowing suggests lack of direction. We stress the need for critical thinking, developing transferable skills, immersion in learning situations, and studying a topic in-depth, i.e., the importance of college for the intellectual experience itself. Nonetheless, the anxiety over what happens the Monday after graduation weighs heavily from day one for students (and their parents); thus it demands our attention.
Over the past year, full time and faculty advisors have had an opportunity to meet in informal settings at the state, regional and national conferences to discuss areas of concern in advising Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students. During these discussions, advisors have identified many challenges that confront them when advising this designated population. Some of these challenges will be addressed in the following discussion.
There are four key areas where academic advisors need to be bold. Hang tight on these, and you will fulfill the NACADA values. More importantly, you will serve your advisees well.
Undeclared, undecided, exploratory: whatever we call it, students often feel pressured to “be” a major, make a decision, clear a clean and direct path to a career, and become what they were “meant to be”… As advisors guide their advisees throughout the process of declaring a major, it can be helpful to ask the right questions, as well as be a source of support.
This article aims to show that when communication improves across silos, or separate entities on college campuses that rarely interact, it might increase empathy for the student-athletes and facilitate simple programmatic changes that could increase the likelihood of student-athletes successfully completing the degree programs that they would ideally like to pursue.
Academic advising is a term that has not yet been clearly defined in Japanese higher education.
As a primary point of contact between universities and students, academic advisors are often asked to integrate data-driven tools into their practice but only rarely do the concerns of advisors guide the creation of new approaches to institutional data. By bringing the advising perspective to analyses of student data, new opportunities can be found to support student pathways with helpful information.
During the summer, the staff of Academic and Career Development at IUPUI works closely with other institutional offices to offer two-day orientation programs for incoming first-year students.
