Agree that the advisor is super helpful. S had to go back to school a week early for work. He emailed his friend’s advisor in the department (who didn’t know S, because he hadn’t talked to anyone about changing majors yet) and the advisor told him to come in the next morning.
S figured it would be a quick meeting, and even wanted me to help him come up with a few questions so he had something to talk about and didn’t feel like he was wasting the advisor’s time. 2 hours later he called me and said they just wrapped up. They pretty much went over everything that has to happen in the next 2 years, plus talked about career path and who knows what else.
This is now the second advisor he has had that I have been super impressed with. He’s at a big state university, which can mean on some issues there’s a bunch of bureaucracy to deal with. It’s where I went, and I can remember a lot of standing in line just to be told I need to go stand in a different line.
But once he’s dealing with the advisors it is not like that at all. This is more what I would expect at a small LAC in terms of how willing they are to help him. Overall I’m just really impressed. He’s not getting the impersonal treatment that big universities have a reputation for.