And I thought the guidance department in high school was bad.

When you go to college, you expect some kind of academic advice to be available if you need it. Some people find they don’t need it at all. Some people do.

I saw an advisor when I first came to FAU. I figured it would give me some direction, coming from another school and having changed my major.

What I got was, “You’ve got a long way to go. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“All you have to do is follow the list and you’ll be fine. But don’t take any electives in your major.”

“Oh, and take a foreign language. That’ll count as an elective, too.”

Seems simple enough, right?

So here I am, a year later and one semester away from graduating.

I’ve been doing what the advisor told me to do: following the list, taking a foreign language and taking electives outside my major.

I decided to see an advisor again because there’s a class I need to take to graduate that hasn’t been offered since I’ve been here, but that’s another story entirely. I also wanted to make sure there weren’t going to be any unwanted surprises come graduation time.

Unfortunately, all I got was one big unwanted surprise.

It turns out following “advice” was just too good to be true.

First, the list has changed. Now you don’t need to take as many classes.

Sounds good doesn’t it?

Not when you’ve already taken them.

Second, the electives outside your major have to be a little more than outside your major.

I’m a journalism major. The journalism sequence is part of the communication major. The communication major is what you have to go outside of to take your electives.

Not so bad, right?

Not when you’ve taken your electives outside the journalism major and not the communication major because that’s the advice you received.

And third, the foreign language that counts as an elective doesn’t count as an elective. It counts as a foreign language.

Not that big a deal, right?

Not when you were counting your foreign language as one of your electives.

So, as it turns out, here I am a year later and two, not one, semesters away from graduating.

I’m a little pissed off, too.

I realized that some of this could very well be my fault. I should’ve looked closer at the undergraduate catalog. I could’ve talked to someone else if I was confused.

But the point is that I shouldn’t have to. Academic advising is supposed to be just that: advising.

Advisors are supposed to answer questions, clarify inconsistencies, and guide you along the track to graduation. Not tell you not to worry about it.

I spent my first year of college at the University of Florida. The advising in Gainesville is so structured that they tell you what to take and what year to take it in. At FAU, structure is a clothing shop in the mall.

No one here gives you a recommended order of classes to take, so you’re not thoroughly confused or terribly bored. If you don’t know what I mean, try taking Introduction to Film after taking Film Theory.

Sometimes, you can’t even find advisors that will give you the same information as others, as I found out recently. Or sometimes, advisors will simply say, “I don’t know.”

Wait a minute, if the academic advisors don’t know, who does?

I’m not saying other college advisory systems are perfect. But some have a better idea of what it’s supposed to be.

People come to college and need guidance sometimes. Sometimes there are questions that can’t be answered with a smile and an “Oh, you’ve got plenty of time” pep talk.

Sometimes, they just need to feel secure that they’re on the right track.

If the academic advisors can’t give you that, then who can?

Maybe FAU should spend less money on a football team and more on teaching its advisors how to help students.

Let’s get out to the gameBy Darren Springer