By Nicholas Bianco and Dylan Lux / Jambar Contributors
As another semester begins at Youngstown State University, students are encouraged to prioritize academic advising as an important resource for their collegiate journey.
While students use advising to help stay on track with courses and credit hours, academic advisors at YSU handle many students’ responsibilities of all years and majors.
Class scheduling can be an intimidating task — especially for first-year students and seniors. A misstep in scheduling can significantly impact graduation dates, potentially keeping a student in college for longer than intended.
After the dissolution of Eastern Gateway Community College, YSU will now be taking in students from the former community college.
Associate Provost for Student Success Claire Berardini explained how advisors are preparing to help EGCC students with their transitions.
“One of the things I think is a challenge for transfer students is they’re often used to the processes from their old college,” Berardini said. “They’re coming to a new institution and things might not work the same there.”
Berardini said a challenge for advisors is obtaining materials from transfer students’ former colleges because courses at different institutions are not the same as YSU courses. Advisors often need to request information from students so the classes they took previously can be equated into their curriculum sheet.
“The advisors are sometimes making best guesses, preliminary courses with students pending what that official evaluation is of the course because we don’t have any official documentation at that point,” Berardini said. “We’re trying to give a ballpark guess of … how this might turn out.”
Berardini said students from EGCC shouldn’t expect YSU advising to be the same as their former community college.
“You’re still going to have to understand how it works at YSU and make the adjustment to that, but they shouldn’t worry about somebody not knowing what degree requirements they need,” Berardini said.
Undeclared students may have trouble deciding which field of study to choose from.
Crystal Bannon, assistant director of the Office of Career Exploration and Development, said undeclared students participate in a Major Exploration Appointment. Students who look to switch majors can see how their credits transition into a different major.
“We have them do the 30-minute Major Exploration Appointment where we sit down [and] we use the tool in the YSU portal called Penguin Pass and we pull up a ‘What-If’ of the different curriculum programs and kind of walk the student through how they may be able to use their credit hours in a different major,” Bannon said.
Bannon said the Penguin Pass is successful in helping students find or change their current major.
“We utilize the Penguin Pass in the YSU Portal to find a good area for them and then we always make a connection with a human after,” Bannon said.
Debora Kucharski, director of undergraduate advising for the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, said students in YSU 1500 classes use Pathway U, a career assessment that focuses on a students’ interests to clarify goals.
“If they’re looking to maybe move out of the STEM area, we will put them in with our career area, just to be looking at all other majors so, we work with them if they’re looking for STEM and if we feel that they’re not interested in a STEM area then we refer them out,” Kucharski said.
Students are encouraged to reach out and regularly meet with their academic advisors, as they are a valuable resource for undergraduate students in their collegiate development.