Blog 1

As you can imagine, I have seen a lot in my 30-plus years of higher education. This includes the “unsuccessful” student who went away to school for two years and came back home with no degree but $50,000 in debt as well as the “successful” student who also went away to school but who graduated with a major in philosophy and $150,000 in debt and no job.  Since I did not personally advise either of these students, I just wonder how different the outcome would have been if only they had gone to my institution and I advised them because, simply stated, it does not have to be this way. Unfortunately, far too often, this is the way.  However, regardless of the situation, there is always a solution. Take, for example, the student who came into my office looking extremely defeated.  She was a single mother of two children, working a part time job, was maxed out on her student loans, was having trouble passing the courses needed for her chosen associate degree, and because she failed and withdrew from so many courses, was not eligible for any grants or scholarships.  Fast track one year later and she had an associate degree. Fast track one year after that and her associate degree and part-time job helped her to get a full-time government job with benefits. How did WE turn this around?  First, I suggested she change her major to an associate degree in general studies because she was very close to that degree, she could complete the courses needed for that degree (unlike the degree she was currently in and continuously failing some of the courses) and because it would give her A college degree, knowing that many jobs simply require, “A college degree”.  Second, I was able to get her an emergency campus grant to help her finish the remaining courses for the general studies degree program.  Third, I told her the exact grade needed in each course in order for her to get her grade point average (GPA) at or above the 2.00 GPA needed to graduate. Fourth, I kept in close contact with her to make sure she successfully completed her courses with the grades she needed to get the 2.0 GPA needed in order to graduate.  Although, in the end it worked out for her, the key is to avoid getting into that type of situation in the first place, which is one of the many reasons for this book. The second lesson here is to keep in close contact with your academic advisor.  One of the institutions I worked at had a sign in front of one of their advising buildings that read “your advisor is your best friend on campus”.  That is a good slogan to keep in mind.  First of all, you should think of your advisor as YOUR advisor.  Don’t just go see AN advisor…go see the same academic advisor each time you register for classes. Even if your institution says that you do not need to see an academic advisor in order to register.  Still go see YOUR ADVISOR.  Don’t do, what I call, “roommate advising” ….as in “my roommate took these classes and we are in the same major, or just about the same major.” I have seen so many situations in which students took courses they did not need, because of program changes or they may have taken the proper courses but a bad combination of courses.  What I mean by a bad combination of courses is general psychology and intro to sociology should not be taken together because the concepts are too closely aligned and taken together, can be very confusing. Also, Intro to Statistics and College Algebra shouldn’t be taken together because that may be too many numbers courses for one semester.  These are things that academic advisors know but the average student does not.  Seeing an academic advisor each semester is one of the keys to graduating in four years that I will cover in later blogs.