With midterms just right around the corner and the spring semester beginning to dwindle down, many Roosevelt Un
iversity students have begun to plan out their upcoming semesters, which typically requires a trip to their academic advisors. For freshman and sophomores, this often means meeting with one the general advisors but for juniors and seniors it may mean meeting with their program specific advisor.
Every university does the advising process differently. According to Roosevelt’s website, the advising program is intended to cultivate a partnership between the student and advisor.
“At Roosevelt University, academic advising is an active partnership between
Academic advising office. Photo by Reyna Estrada.
student and advisor, with the goal to develop, clarify, and evaluate a student’s educational plans and align them with the student’s goals,” according to Roosevelt.edu.
On a larger scale, academic advisors have been thought to play a central role in the students success, as well as provided an essential resource for the student, both in the classroom and outside of it.
Academic advisors have the ability to promote student success through their ability to prepare students and place them on the right path for their programs, according to an article published on nacada.ksu.edu.
According to the same article, advisors should strive to know their students well through meaningful interactions, as well as help guide students down a successful academic path.
A good advisor can mean different things to different students, and there has been some mixed reactions to the academic advising team at Roosevelt University.
Fatima Bravo, a senior, human resource management major at Roosevelt University said she would rate the effectiveness of the advising program at a nine out of 10.
“I was a transfer student, so I had two different advisors. When I first came in, my advisor was very helpful, she really helped me out to pick out my classes,” Bravo said.
“In the beginning I was kind of confused about how to even search up classes because it was different from my other school, so I felt like I had a little bit of struggle with that,” she added.
Although she said she has had a good experience overall, she maintained that some advisors may need to improve upon their patience.
Other students were less pleased with their experiences.
Karina Aguilar, a junior psychology major said she would rate the effectiveness of the advising program at a five and a half out of 10.
“I have heard a lot of different cases where the advisors have been not listening to their students and just assigning whatever to them without their input at all,” she said.
Aguilar said that she thinks some of the issues may be caused by understaffing. “I definitely do think that they are way too spread thin. For example, I know Jennifer Hinton, she's the psychology program advisor so she handles all of psychology majors, which is insane--there are so many psych majors.”
Samantha Hernandez, a senior psychology major and peer mentor said she agrees with Aguilar. She rated the advising program at five or six out of ten. Her experience mentoring other students has influenced her opinion.
“I have heard some of my mentees say it's a little bit difficult just because, some people that work there are not as approachable as others,” Hernandez said.
“As far as advising academically, I would say that it's been fine so far, but it's just the fact that if there's a problem with classes or anything that's not their first source to go to,” she added.
Eba Estrada, a senior at Roosevelt University rated the effectiveness at eight out of 10.
“I usually kind of know what classes, I kind of go to them, just for reassurance,” she said. However, overall she said she believes they do a good job at planning out classes for students.
Estrada said she did find some issues within the program.
“I feel like sometimes they don’t let you know things that are going on, so you end up finding out yourself,” Estrada said.
A walk through Roosevelt University's campus. Made by Reyna Estrada