I am wondering, and maybe some current students can chime in here, how helpful are advisors? When do freshman meet with their advisors, and do they assist with class enrollments? What about for second semester, etc. Thanks for any feedback.
My daughter never found her advisors to be particularly helpful. This may be in large part because she was not the “typical” student coming in for advising - she had some AP credits, had taken some summer courses at our local community college, and had a double and then a triple major. She needed to be familiar with her own requirements because the advisors didn’t see enough students in her specific circumstances to be able to give her definitive information on the spot at her advising session. This was apparent right from the advising at Bama Bound, so I have stayed on top of D’s requirements in order to help her with planning her schedule. I think it may vary by which college/department a student is in, but advising meetings in the business school start shortly after a semester begins for the next semester. For freshmen, advising for fall semester takes place at Bama Bound. For my D, it was important to sign up for an advising session shortly after she got an e-mail about the sessions, otherwise they filled up and she would have to do group advising in order to get her schedule signed off on before priority registration (she found this out because she is a procrastinator).
Advisor quality varies depending on the individual advisor. Different departments handle advising differently, but one generally schedules an appointment with an individual advisor or attends a group advising appointment. UA has four types of people who can lift advising holds: advisors, selected professors, certain departmental staff, and academic deans.
It’s very helpful if you know which courses you plan to take before you attend your advising appointment/session. Only the student is allowed to physically register for a course.
One can schedule advising appointments starting as soon as the second week of the previous semester. Actual registration won’t happen for a month or more, but at least one will get any advising holds lifted.
Thank you for information, your D and my S sound a lot alike. My S also has credit from other college’s and will have quite a few AP credits. His major will be engineering. I will make sure we stay on top of any sign ups received and jump on them ASAP. I have a D who attends a midsize private college, has so much help with classes, changed majors a couple times, I can’t imagine trying to figure it all out on your own. But I guess students get through it.
My son never really met with his assigned advisor; he went to see the Mech. Engr. undergraduate program coordinator initially for a question and just stuck with her for his undergrad years.
It reallys depends on individuals, but I dont think the advisors in Bama bound were good. When I went to the Bama Bound last summer one advisor gave me a wrong fact about AP credits; that Biology dept. doesnt accept AP bio credit even though the booklet clearly said the opposite. I had to talk to the dept. head to get a right information.
Much that a student needs to know can be found either in his dept major’s website or with DegreeWorks. The idea that an advisor who is going to see hundreds of kids will “know” what you should take outside of what’s already in the boilerplate isn’t very practical. An advisor can’t even spend much time with each student.
Many of depts have semester by semester suggested schedules. An advisor is mostly just going to go by that. With so much online, advisors are essentially obsolete.
@gemini322 What is your major? What AP credits are you coming in with? Have you looked at that major online to see if there is a semester by semester suggested sequence?
As for Bama Bound, each student should come in with a suggested schedule with some options in case certain sections are full.
My son had a good relationship with his advisor. We met him after he registered at Bama Bound, and he was quite helpful. He wanted my son in a math class in the fall, but my son was told everything was closed to him. His advisor picked up the phone and called the registrar about this. My son suddenly had a math class. They chatted throughout my son’s four years, and he always signed off on schedule requests. So I guess his advising experience was a good one.
In CofE, most advising past the first semester appears to be conducted solely online, and a student will rarely actually meet in person with someone (unless they request it). This is probably done because of the sheer number of students an advisor needs to see…but also because so many eng’g students have a flowchart to follow, and there isn’t a lot of true ‘advising’ that needs to take place from semester to semester.
Individual professors can be quite helpful with advising. At least in aero, which has a very ‘narrow’ and well-defined track of classes, my S relies on a lead teacher (and considers him his faculty advisor), rather than going to his assigned engineering college advisor (there are 4 advisors in CofE, based on alpha last name), who is a young person with not as much experience with the coursework as the professor.
If your student is saying that their advisor is not helpful or is ‘not good’, this is a red flag that they aren’t seeking out alternatives that fit their situation. Students should seek out and develop a relationship with SOMEone at UA who they can talk with on a fairly regular basis. That could be their assigned advisor, sure, but it could be a faculty member in their department, someone in the Honors College, or it could be someone in the career center. If for no other reason, students will at some point require a formal letter of recommendation, and having a relationship with someone who knows them very well is extremely useful.
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This is probably done because of the sheer number of students an advisor needs to see...but also because so many eng'g students have a flowchart to follow, and there isn't a lot of true 'advising' that needs to take place from semester to semester.
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Exactly. And there are other majors where req’ts are laid out in a semester by semester flow as well.
I forgot to add that my advising situation was much like that beth’s mom’s daughter in that my transfer credits and major combination made it difficult to use DegreeWorks (UA’s version did not support triple majors at the time) and would’ve confused a lot of advisors.
I ended up being advised by a department chair and an academic dean as both had the power to approve most overrides or course substitutions. I was very grateful to have a paper checksheet for my major requirements as well as a paper course catalog so I could look at course combinations which worked for other majors and might work for me. This was a lot more time consuming than the vast majority of students would regularly need to do, especially if they were following a more common degree plan and didn’t have as much transfer credit.
Thank you all for your help. I imagine this will be a tricky situation and one that he will need to definitely stay on top of. As of right now it lists him with just over 32 hours credit. He is taking 5 AP’s this year and is taking Linear Algebra on line through U of I. He estimated having just over 50 credit hours, based on what he looked up on UA’s website - although he said there may be a max that is allowed at UA? So even though he is entering into Engineering, the preset schedule will change somewhat I imagine. We finally received official acceptance, scholarship letter and Honors College Acceptance. I paid deposit and he applied for housing…next up visit. 
@Gemini322
I think your son will be fine with his credits. Bama used to limit AP credits to about 45, but that is no longer the case.
My kids each came in with 45 AP credits and we just printed out their “suggested schedules” of 8 semesters, crossed out the classes that they already had credit for, and then that left them free to explore other classes for their own personal interest and minors that interested them.
One good thing that coming in with lots of AP credits did was allow them each to take fewer credits Fall Frosh semester…which is an adjustment semester. For many STEM majors, that first semester can be filled with hard subjects with demanding labs. To be able to take 13/14 credits rather than 16/17 can make a difference to a fall frosh!
You will likely find that some of the AP credits will not apply to the Eng’g sequence. Yes, English, Calc, Physics, and Chem will…and some humanities and histories will, but my kids had too many AP history credits that didn’t count anywhere…and one son (math major) had bio credits that didn’t apply anywhere either. It’s fine…the credits just sit on the transcript.
^^ My D also had credits she couldn’t really use. However, even though they didn’t help her with progress toward her degree, they most definitely helped her with registration priority, so the more credits the merrier!
DegreeWorks really helps and many questions are easily figured out on their own. Where it can get tricky is with double and triple majors where it appears dept courses are interchangeable but in reality they are not. For example, our son thought based on a flow chart online that the physics electromagnetism courses were interchangeable with the EE electromagnetism courses, but they are not. While in theory they cover the same topics, ABET requirements mean that the EE version must be taken. His engineering advisor did not pick up on it during BamaBound. Pretty sure that was bc it was not the typical BB registration. So, double checking on double and triple major situations with each dept (bc technically they only need one dept’s approval) would definitely be my advice. Straightforward single major should be fairly easy to follow.
Just found out that there are apparently 5 CofE advisors (not 4) - UA hired 2 new advisors last fall. 1 was a replacement for an existing advisor position and 1 was a brand new position. http://students.eng.ua.edu/advising/find-your-advisor/?utm_campaign=college-comm-news-fall-2014&utm_source=college-comm-news&utm_medium=email
Also noting that advising for returning Engineering students begins >Jan 15th for the summer/fall semesters already!
Back when I was in school, I found that most advisors knew little about the program I was in. I even informed one that he was wrong, I was right, and just go ahead and sign the schedule (you had to have a signed schedule to be able to go in and pull computer cards for the individual classes - yeah, we’re talking 40+ years ago!).
Know what’s required for your major in the catalog you entered under. Know it backwards and forwards!
I think the answer to this question depends on what type of help your student is seeking. Here is how advising played out for my son who knew that he wanted a major within the business school.
Students in the business school are not assigned a specific advisor. This was not a problem for my son in terms of course selection for his major but it became a huge issue when, after his first class in his chosen major, he decided that this particular field was NOT for him. Poor boy was miserable and I was heartsick. DH and I felt like our son needed guidance in “major selection” as well as “course selection.” We had previously spent time with an Associate Dean in the College of Business Administration during our visit to UA, so we emailed him to ask for advice. He contacted our son and scheduled a meeting but could not see him right away. In the meantime, we pushed our son to visit the business school’s career counseling center and to attend a “Majors Fair” at the Ferg. DS was reluctant but found both steps to be very helpful. By the time DS met with the Associate Dean, he had a better idea of what he wanted to pursue and the AD was able to advise him of the possibilities based on his interests and credit hours. This gentleman then became his regular advisor. Thanks to his guidance, DS will graduate with 2 majors and 3 specializations. More importantly, he is happy and pursuing something which he really likes!
While I find it true that students need to know their own degree requirements and be their own advocates, I also believe there is a time for intervention to make sure that a student doesn’t get lost in the system. I am glad that we spoke up and pushed hard when we did, and I am very grateful for an Associate Dean who stepped in to guide.
My senior DD came in with about 20 AP credits. She declared a PR major from Day 1 and has not changed. She did not try to double major, but do what was necessary to (hopefully) graduate “with honors.” She followed the Dept of Communications flow chart and has not had a problem. While she didn’t need “advisement” to figure out her classes, her advisor has been wonderful and supportive. She made it a point to meet with him once a semester during her frosh/soph years and that initiative forged a relationship paid off when it came time for her to ask about recommendations for summer internships and now for jobs. He didn’t specifically find her a position, but his encouragement gave her confidence to follow her instincts. I would hope every student would find an advisor or professor on campus to have their back as this one has done for my DD.
I am a current student and I have a few things I can say
There are different types of advising.
First, is the freshman orientation advising in which you should not under any circumstance listen to what your advisor says. They will talk you out of things and into things and give you bad advice. Research what classes you want before hand and during registration enter the CRNs ASAP and click submit. If the advisor tries to talk you out of taking a class, ignore them.
Second is the pre registration advising, which can be done via walk in during select times or e-advising. Both times, you just tell the advisor what classes you plan on taking the next semester and they clear you so you can register for classes the following semester.
Third is the appointment advising. You actually have to call the office or walk in and talk to the receptionist to book an appointment (the online appointment thing doesn’t ever work) It is at this appointment you should ask the advisor any questions you have that are confusing you. You need to write them all down as they come to you while you are looking at classes or your future (I suggest the notes on your phone as it is usually easily accessible and with you at all times, then write them down on paper before the appt). I would ask about core curriculum requirements, if you are on track with your degree, honors requirements, changing majors/adding a minor, asking about particular classes, figuring out what classes you could take to best prepare you for after college, etc. It would be after registration ends that you have this appointment.
I have found that the advisors I have spoken with, when not busy with registering students for the next semester, are usually pretty helpful and can answer all your questions, but if they are busy, they tend not to give very good advice and you will regret heeding them. So if you have any questions about registering, you should ask them before the walk in advising for registering begins. That way they can actually think about what they are telling you instead of just being on autopilot.