Section 3: Guiding Students Through the Plan
Giving Good Advice
Giving good advice is what advising is all about! Academic advisors need to base their advice on students' career and life goals, interests, and ability to complete a proposed academic load. As the academic advisor, you should gain an understanding of each student's interests and goals as you get acquainted. The techniques for getting to know advisees covered in Section 2 of the handbook should help. It is also important to assess each student's academic performance and to tailor advice for the student in that vein. Listed below are some suggestions for assessing student progress and helping individuals understand the options they have as TTU students:
- Use degree audit reports and make sure student understands the details
- Review the audit in each advising session.
- Highlight remaining distribution requirements
- Ask students to make a list of courses they expect to take in the coming two to three semesters
- Have students plan at least 2 semesters in advance
- Keep a copy of list on file
- Pay attention to courses which may be offered only in fall or only in spring semester, or only during alternate years
- Update and change the list at each advising session
- Encourage students to take a challenging, yet balanced, load
- Balance a term by using humanities or social science electives, physical education, etc
- Avoid combining extremely challenging courses or too many labs in same term.
- Look for patterns
- Compare current course load to past performance
- Determine if students have performed adequately in the past with this number of credits (as defined by TTU standards and students' personal aspirations).
- Look at courses to determine if load is balanced between difficult and easy
- Decide if the student's expectations and aspirations are reasonable relative to the proposed load
- Suggest a different mix of courses, if necessary.
- Be aware of academic performance requirements for scholarships
- Ask students about scholarships they may have
- Adjust course load to an appropriate level if students are financially dependent on a scholarship to stay in school
- Balance the academic load with consideration being given to all activities that students may be involved with including work study or other work commitments
- Help the student weigh overloading options with the possibility of taking a course near home or work during the summer
- Be aware of rules about transferring courses to TTU.
- Recognize that TTU has a very elite student body capable of a high level of achievement, but remember that these students still need encouragement.
- It is often assumed that highly talented students choose a major early on and have well-defined plans for future lifestyle and careers; however, this is rarely the case. In fact, these students often struggle because they are able to consider a wide range of interests and abilities. They will need assistance in exploring their options and they will need encouragement and support from you.
- Students are very sensitive to comments from advisors about their academic ability
- Be tactful when providing potentially negative information
- Encourage students to reach their potential. Early in their experiences at TTU, students may be looking for short cuts and the easy way -- try to help them focus on their long term goals. This is a good time to discuss the "easy course" pitfalls.