Rant about university advising. Grrrrrr.

[Lyric]

:rant:

There is only one week of classes left (Dead Week) before finals, and then the semester is over. BUT...I still have not been able to register for classes next semester, and I am annoyed as effing hell about it.

My university lets students do their own registration online via our STAR system. However, you have to enter your "term PIN" in order to register for classes, and you cannot GET your term PIN until you've attended an academic advising session.

I understand the need for this when it comes to young students. They have to be guided into what they NEED to take, because otherwise they risk taking a bunch of classes that won't count toward their major, and that might mess up their degree plan. This makes sense--for THEM. However, for those of us who ARE perfectly able to examine the major and GEC requirements list and figure out on our OWN what we need to take (especially non-trad students like me) there should be an option to waive the advising session.

Firstly, I do not need it; it's a complete waste of my time. Not once in the three semesters that I have been a college student have I actually needed an advisor to tell me what to take. I have done just fine figuring it out on my own, and half of the classes that my "advisor" suggests are ones that are not suited to me anyway. She looks for the first open class that meets a requirement, rather than spending any time searching for a class that both meets a particular requirement AND has some relevance to my course of study. These sessions inevitably turn into fifteen minutes of me nodding my head as she fills out a "suggestion" sheet, and then tossing it in the wastebasket as I leave the Academic Services building.

Secondly--fifteen to twenty minutes is NOT enough time for an advisor to do any meaningful, personalized advising. The good advice she gives involve things that I already know (take your foreign languages early, etc.) The rest is just thrown-together, haphazard, anything-that-meets-the-GEC-requirement bullshit and it isn't the least bit helpful. Maybe that works for the "typical" college student who's just looking to graduate and get out as fast as possible, but I'm there to LEARN. I want to learn things that will help me in my future career--not just whatever meets the minimum standard for a class.

Thirdly--actually GETTING an appointment with my advisor is a royal pain in the ass. There are 30,000 students and a scant handful of undergrad, non-major advisors. I can't get an advisor in my major until I have at least 29 credit hours socked away, and competing with the rest of the freshman and sophomore horde to get an appointment is a nightmare. It is especially awful because I only have a very, VERY limited amount of time that I can be on-campus--I am beholden to the bus schedule and to my son's school hours. I cannot stay past 3:00 pm, and I cannot get to campus any earlier than 10:00, because of those two factors. I have classes almost continuously between those hours, and during the small amount of time that I am NOT in class, they NEVER have any freaking appointments available! I end up having to wait until the very last week of classes, during which they have "walk-in" advising for last-minute people. By then, I am stuck having to choose between whatever classes are still available. This is an INCREDIBLE hardship on me, as my class hours MUST be compatible with the bus schedule and my son's school hours. If the only classes left all start at either 7:30 am or 6:00 pm, I am fucked in a major way.

If they would have agreed to waive their stupid policy, give me my damned term PIN, and let me register weeks ago (when I was first technically able to) I'd have been gravy. I had my schedule all picked out, I had the perfect times, and all of those classes were open. I literally BEGGED my advisor to please just look at my proposed schedule via e-mail, give it a nod, and then send me my damned PIN. But noooooo. No, that would have made too much sense, I guess. Let me copy-paste her response:

B*****,

If we do e-mail advising, then I have to find time in between my other appointments to reply back to your e-mail(s). I hope to talk with you soon.

A** R******
Non-Traditional Academic Advising

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Seriously--how long could it possibly take to type out a PIN number and click "send?" Hell, she could have done exactly that in the time that it took her to WRITE TO ME and TELL ME that typing out an e-mail would take too much TIME!

ARGGGGHHHH!

:nuke:

Somebody save me from the stupid university bureaucracy, please.

:rant:

[mopinko]

1. i can only say

that i cannot believe they have not yet come up with a better euphemism for students who are not punk kids. non-traditional. ferfucksakes.
that's the kind of shit that kept my from going back to college in my 40's. it sucked bad enough in my late 20's.
and i can't believe they have assigned advisors who don't get it.