Problems in the advisement office
Ben Garcia
Would you like to hear a joke? Yes.
Ok here it goes: MCC advisement.
Not very funny right? Maybe I should have just stated that the MCC advisement system is a joke, instead of insulting the institution of jokes.
Please note that this criticism of advisers at MCC won’t include any names but it will be putting the advisement system “on blast.”
I’ve heard countless horror stories coming from close friends and these horror stories run the gamut of bad possibilities.
For instance, say you ask about possibly transferring to a university and an adviser does what they are supposed to and helps you find classes that are supposed to transfer over.
After a semester or two, you come to find out that four or five classes that you’ve taken don’t transfer and you pretty much wasted time, effort and money for classes you didn’t even need.
Maybe this problem isn’t 100 percent MCC’s advisement department’s problem but it does reflect a system that could use improvements, and I understand it is, for the most part, out of the hands of the advisors.
The next issue I’ve heard about, and dealt with personally, is 100 percent on the shoulders of the advisors. There seems to be underlying personality problems within the advisement department.
This scenario plays out something like this: you either schedule an appointment days or sometimes weeks ahead of time, or you wait it out 30 minutes to an hour in the lobby which finally results ina one-on-one meeting with an adviser.
Within seconds of the meeting, you’re overwhelmed with the feeling that your adviser doesn’t want to be bothered by you and your silly questions.
You feel as if you’re a burden to them because you’re asking questions they’ve answered hundreds of times. When you get an answer from them it’s delivered in a way that suggests they don’t want to be there or that they don’t like their job.
This is a big problem for people trying to seek “advisement,” which in the end is to better their lives and or move forward with their careers.
I’ll admit that maybe I’m being a little too hard on MCC’s advisers who some say are “over worked.” But then again, an advisers work load is not my problem.
