by Ratanjot Rekhi

The majority of students who aren’t graduating this May might need some guidance when making a schedule. Whether they get that help or not is another situation that some students may be facing this spring.

When it comes to advising, a lot of students have mixed feelings. For senior, Tashom Carroll, advising did not go as smoothly as she expected.

After having a helpful freshman advisor, Carroll felt that her faculty advisor was not up to par.

She explained, “I’ve barely ever met with him in my life. The one time I met with him it was kind of just to check in with him and he was like, ‘I don’t know why you are here.’ It was an open advising session.”

As a sophomore at the time, Carroll did not know what classes she should be taking in order to graduate on time.

“I was advised by my first-year counselor for two years, even though she wasn’t supposed to be my advisor. And then I used the Education Department’s advisor as my advisor. She’s not my specialty advisor, but she helped me out, so I kept on going back,” said Carroll.

Charles Miller, Director of the Center for Academic Advising and Adult Learning, said fron his experience, there seems to be a lack of knowledge.

Is it a lack of knowledge on the students’ part or the advisors? While many students don’t even know who their advisors are, those that do know find it very difficult to get in touch with their advisors.

Sophomore, Carly Chupka explained, “My advisor is not helpful at all. Every time I e-mail her for an appointment, she e-mails me back saying that she is all booked, every time.”

Considering that courses are not posted up on WESS yet, many students have not even thought about meeting with their advisor to map out their fall semester.

According to Miller, “If someone came in now, we can take their WESS report and write down options for their philosophy and religion requirements or their math options. Even if classes are not posted yet, we wait and see what is available, and this way, they have options and a back-up plan.”

According to Miller, the Center for Academic Advising and Adult Learning sends out an e-mail a month and a half into the semester to urge students to make an appointment with their advisor.

A student who would prefer to remain nameless explained, “I have had this specific advisor since spring semester freshmen year. She has been so busy with her classes and her clubs that she doesn’t make her students a priority.”

“I called her and left her many voicemails, and she never returned one call. I, then, e-mailed her and she called me a liar and told me she didn’t appreciate the tone of my e-mail because she never received any of my messages.”

Senior Maureen Grimaldi had the opposite experience with her advisor as she explained, “My advisor was very helpful. I had class with him and had never met him before that, so he saw me hard at work and it was easier for him to see where I was at academically.”

While some students have great relationships with their advisors, some, unfortunately, do not. For students that are undeclared, the path to graduate in four years is sometimes a very frustrating one.

Sophomore Allen Teplitsky is currently a psychology major, but he is not sure if he would like to keep this as his major.

He said, “I went to my freshman advisor last year and they helped me, but only enough that they wanted me to help myself. They just reviewed a career aptitude test with me and told me what I can read for myself.”

Miller explained, “We want the student to take ownership of their education with us as their support.”

Thinking back on his freshman year, Teplitsky said, “At the beginning, my advisor gave me a print out of what classes to take for my major, but now it’s less control. I’ve been taking some English major classes even though I’m a Psychology major.”

The Center for Academic Advising and Adult Learning would like to help students to the best of their ability, but not tell them exactly what to do because they feel that this is a personal choice.

Miller believes, “It’s hard because we don’t want to tell a student what to take because the choices are personal choices. Students pay a lot of money for school, do you want the university to tell you not only what major you have to be, but what classes you have to take within that major too?”

“Don’t you want to know what the rules are, so you can say, ‘Aha, I can be this major and I can be that major and I can take a minor.’ Then the question is, where’s your advisor and you talk to them about how to do this,” Miller said.

Miller says that counselors are present to “help you on the right path, but when it comes to fine-tuning, what path did you take?”

As far as undeclared students are concerned, Miller believes, “You can get through, easily, to forty-five hours if you’re undeclared with just General Education Requirements.”

Though taking all major classes in the last few years of college is challenging, it is possible to graduate on a four-year track by doing so.

“We send out invitations for undeclared students with 30-45 credit hours to come to workshops that will help them put together, ‘what major do I want to chose,’” Miller said.

Also, for students who do not need in-depth advising, there are various resources available at the Center for Academic Advising and Adult Learning website.

One of which includes, live advising online between the hours of 10-2 p.m. Details can be found at: http://www.montclair.edu/AcademicAdvising/live.html.