What You Need To Know About Advising
There are many unanswered questions that students have about the advising process. The following will hopefully answer any lingering questions you may have. It will help you understand the benefits of advising, why we advise the way we do, how to use the process to help yourself, and how other students use advising to help them succeed.
Why Group/Marathon Advising
Many students have expressed concern with the group/marathon advising in the Communication Department. There are many ways things can go wrong, but there are also a lot of benefits to using this system. Jeanine Fassl (Coordinator of Academic Advising) gave some insights on the do's and don'ts of advising.
According to Fassl, the group advising format is actually to benefit students. The faculty in this department is smaller than most on campus. In order for faculty to do individual advising appointments, they would have to advise over thirty students per professor. This would be bad for students because faculty members would likely be burned out by the time they got to their last appointments. Another reason this system is beneficial for students is because it allows for accurate spread of information. Simply stated, with group advising everyone is getting the same information at the same time. This allows newer faculty members to learn how the advising system works here at UW-Whitewater, and it prevents them from misinforming students.
Getting The Most Out of Advising
Fassl says that the best way to get the most out of your advising appointment is to be prepared. As far as using advising to help you graduate on time, she says that the earlier you get on top of things, the better it will be for you. She also emphasized the importance of following your advising report (AR) and making sure it is updated because no one wants to be sitting the semester they are supposed to graduate and suddenly realize that they have six more credits to take. Following the AR is very important in the success of students. Another thing Fassl suggests is to follow the documents given when you declare your major or minor. The major/minor checklists are updated every few years, and the requirements on your AR correspond with the checklist that was in place the semester you declared your program choice. You may use new checklists; however, you will need to see Jeanine Fassl if you take a class that is on the new checklist but not the old. She can then personalize your AR to make your class count in the right place.
Ladder vs. Tree
The Communication Department differs from other departments on campus in that it allows for a wide range of choices of classes. This is done to give the students a major that they feel will benefit them most. Many departments use the ladder approach to advising. The ladder approach is good because it doesn’t allow for any mistakes. On a ladder, there is only one place to step next; the choice is obvious. The Communication Department uses a tree format. When climbing a tree trunk, the beginning is pretty much the same for everyone (ex.: core requirement classes) but very important because you can’t get to the top without doing this first. But once you get to the branches, you must make a choice— which branch will get you to the top faster, which will give you more of an exciting climb, and which ones you can hold onto. This is just like classes in the department; if you plan ahead, you will get to the top quickly. If you go for the creative route, it may take you longer, but you might learn more along the way. There are some classes that just don’t fit what you want to do; you have the choice of not taking these classes. You will still reach the end result but you have a choice in what classes you take to get there. Rather than having an advisor tell you what you have to take every semester, you can choose which classes sound most interesting and fit what you want to do for a career.
How To Be Successful With This System...
When asked about the advising system in the Communication Department, senior Tiffany Strey said she really likes the way the advising works in this department. She was a transfer student her sophomore year and managed to complete one major and two minors in four years. She has achieved this by planning ahead with her classes. She said she takes control of scheduling classes and doesn't rely on her advisors to do so. When asked why she prefers to do this, she said it was because no one knows what classes she wants and needs to take better than herself. She asks a lot of questions during marathon advising to see if she is on the right track and that is all. Tiffany says that she thinks this system will actually benefit her when she goes out into the workplace because it is teaching her to be independent and plan for herself rather than rely on someone else to do it for her. This is an example of a student who is getting the most out of the advising system in place and is using it to benefit herself.
Question not answered here? Click to email Jeanine Fassl for any other inquiries.