<p>Warren college piloted their Live Chat Advisor during enrollment this past week and I was curious what people felt about it compared to using the Virtual Advisor. The Live Chat Advisor let you "chat" with an Academic Advisor (IM style) vs. the Virtual Advisor where you posted your question(s) and had to wait for a response from the Advisor. It appears that students are using both systems about 50/50 so just wanted to know what your take was on the contact methods if you like/hate them...</p>
<p>Personally ...I wish there was more face to face advising, so you could actually talk to a person. UCSD does everything on the internet. It's kinda annoying.</p>
<p>Live Chat Advisor is kewler because you feel less lonely. :(</p>
<p>Annoyingly comfortable!!</p>
<p>Think about it man, I don't have to haul my A S S over to the counselor, I just sit here and type to him.</p>
<p>I think that is part of the dilemna with this sort of system - some students appreciate the accesibility that they can get online (especially when posting questions outside of office hours when they are thinking about them) vs. others that appreciate the face to face contact. The Academic Advising Offices/counselors are open and accessible once you get to UCSD so the face-to-face access is available - it is difficult during enrollment though since students aren't physically on campus. We are playing with some online webinar software to provide additional venues of getting information out to students as well. I am finding that today's students are so tech-savvy that IM'ing/forum posting is as part of natural communication to them as face-to-face conversations but I also know that it takes a lot of the "human" element out of it all and considering that 80% of communication is body-language (not the spoken word) that says a lot.</p>
<p>I liked live chat. All other things aside, I received inaccurate information from virtual advisor, so yeah. Face-to-face would've been better.</p>
<p>What information did you get oneday that was not accurate? </p>
<p>All of the staff are trained professionals with several years of experience (generally speaking - Orientation Leaders are generally students that have had training or are familiar with the curriculum b/c they have gone through it) - I wonder if inaccuracies occur because sometimes questions (and answers for that matter) can be misinterpreted (I saw another thread about duplicate credit for Courses that AP credit was applied to and wondered if it was something like that?). Thanks for the feedback!!!</p>
<p>It's regarding AP Calc scores and course eligibility. I'm very careful about these kind of stuff, so I was pretty sure I was right (not to be arrogant or anything, but I had a conversion chart in my hand AND online). I asked my advisor twice regarding the issue, and twice she insisted that I wasn't allowed to take the course.
But, I can understand a slight error and won't hold any resentment or anything. I'm sure they were overwhelmed by an insane amount of questions. Nonetheless, live chat just seemed a bit.. friendlier, if you would :)</p>
<p>Thanks Oneday that's good to know - and you had already done your homework too so could catch the error ;-). People are human and bound to make mistakes but I believe the colleges take misinformation pretty seriously and there's a certain amount of accountability in using the Virtual Advisor.</p>