By Jade Myers/campus editor
A student gets their associate degree and thinks, “Alright, I’m outta here.”
Then, they talk to advisers at their new school who tell them they don’t care if they have their associate because they need to have the basics that they require, which are not always the same as the school they came from.
Then BAM! They’re stuck for another semester when they thought they were done.
Students at TCC and other colleges often run into situations like this, where they end up taking classes they did not need and not taking all of the classes they did need.
The advising system at TCC needs to change and those alterations may be on the horizon but can’t get here soon enough.
A lot of the problem is due to communication. When first starting, students talk to an adviser. And students listen to them because they do not know any better.
The real advisers that students should be talking to are the ones at the university, which doesn’t require being currently enrolled there.
If a student knows they want to go to the University of Texas at Arlington, then go to UTA and ask the advisors there.
Expecting advisers to know exactly what classes a student needs to major in specific degrees at every other college is unrealistic.
They don’t even seem to know about every major because they’re supposed to be generalists. Having to know every major here is just too much.
Each adviser should be assigned to a certain major, and should have a couple of advisers for the more common majors with one for the less common subjects.
For example, they could have four for teaching and one for computer-related majors.
That way, advisers might have a higher chance of knowing what classes their students actually need and even what they do in them. More importantly, there could be less communication issues.
But until things change, students just have to deal with it.
