Our View: Advising upgrade comes too late
August 28, 2013
Georgia Southern University added 25 new professional advisors to start the semester, which is too little too late for many upperclassmen. Many students at GSU complain about how their advisors either did not provide solid advising that would get the students on the right track to graduation on time. While many students enjoy college and its atmosphere, staying in school longer than necessary is an expensive venture. Adding these professional advisors will hopefully help students get out of college faster, avoiding extra semesters of debt that hinder a student’s post-graduate life.
While GSU is still attempting to use the “Large Scale, Small Feel” tagline to attract students, it must realize that it is important to make sure that the large scale part of the university has enough resources to make the small feel happen. This means bringing in more advisors or even faculty to keep advisor-to-student and professor–to-student ratios down to a level that is manageable and beneficial to the student.
Hopefully bringing in these 25 dedicated advisors to help students plan their course schedules and get cleared for graduation will decrease the amount of time students are in college accruing debt, while increasing the quality of that course schedule. Students should not be enrolled in unnecessary classes due to bad advising with these new, dedicated advisors. Unfortunately for those upperclassmen that have already received poor advising, there is not too much that the school can do for them now, but this move should help remedy the problem for future students.