The Shifting Sands of Advising

Abstract

This study is prompted by the observation that students tend to seek their peers instead of their faculty advisers for advising about their academic program. This mode of advising focuses more on relaying the university's rules and regulations than helping devise a program of study. This could be a natural outcome of the learning curve phenomenon; however, there is an indication that it is more tied to the inefficiency of the advising mechanisms and the cumbersome process of seeking a reliable adviser's input. For this study, a two-phase survey was conducted. It revealed that there is a need to reinvent advising to include a deeper level of program design. A more creative mode of information exchange that is strategically oriented toward student-centered learning is needed. An Internet portal that incorporates a form of an online Decision Support System (DSS) may be implemented to foster this relationship. This will pave the way for introducing a more rigorous program of study and a wider range of choices.