Questions to Ask Your Advisor

This article will provide students with some questions to ask to facilitate a productive conversation with their advisor.

By Xavier Royer — December 16, 2022

Tags: academic requirements, advanced education, advising, advisor, asking questing, career development, college advising, graduation, networking, team building, the more you know, workplace readiness

Advising meetings are important, but it is not always intuitive what students' goals should be going into them. They often happen in one of the most hectic windows of the year, in the sprint between midtermscand finals. However, these meetings can set the tone for students next semester as well as their greater ambitions. Preparing for an advising meeting can be the difference between a semester of interesting and helpful classes or a stressful grind. This article will provide students with some questions to ask to facilitate a productive conversation with their advisor.

Am I on Track With my Credits and Requirements?

If no other question gets asked during class registration, be sure this one does. Ensuring students graduate on time is the advisor's number one objective. Students should know exactly what their path to graduation is. If a student does not know their graduation requirements, they should continue asking questions until they understand, even if they start to feel like a pest. One of the most common horror stories on campuses is the last-minute realization that students do not have what they need on their transcripts to graduate. Students should ensure their advisor knows their graduation expectations and are registering them to meet those expectations.

Are there Classes that Have Limited Availability?

Not all classes are offered every semester, and, particularly in years two and three, students may want to prioritize courses that are only taught once a year or every two years. These opportunities can be limited but are also often some of the most fun and interactive courses on campus. Generally, students should prioritize courses with limited availability over those frequently offered.

Is there a Practicum or Other Large Project Associated with the Curriculum that the Student should be Preparing for?

Many programs have a thesis, practicum, or other large project required for graduation. Sometimes this is paired with a class; other times, this is done in addition to coursework. Understanding if there is a project is critical to how courses are registered. If students have to do a large project in their senior year, it may make sense to backload easier courses to allow the student more cognitive band width to complete those big projects. Knowing about these projects sooner can also allow the students to get ahead of the curve. If a student knows about the project and its structure sooner, they can keep their mind open during their courses for ideas and inspiration. They can also build relationships and resources to help them with that final project sooner.

Questions about Career Development and Resources

Different universities have different strategies when it comes to career advising. Sometimes the academic advisor is also the career advisor, while others have different staff/faculty members for each role. Likely, there will be a mix of the two, where the academic advisor may have starting points for students, but other faculty and staff do the proper "advising." Regardless, academic advising is a good time to bring up the topic of professional development and advising. Similar to large projects, if students look at internships or other out-of-class activities for a semester, that may adjust their course load. Many students also need to learn when to begin having those conversations, and academic advising can be a nice arbitrary starting point.

Questions about Grad School (or an Equivalent)

As with professional questions, the academic advisor may or may not be the chief point of contact. This is more likely if the advisor is a faculty member. Regardless, knowing a student is trying to go to graduate (or law or medical) school may affect how the advisor registers the student. For example, most Ph.D. applications go out late in the fall semester. These can be time intensive, and managing those applications on top of a large or intensive course load can be difficult. With this in mind, those applications are often missing the final semester of undergraduate study. Students may make a strategic decision about where their GPA will be best when deciding when to apply. All this goes into academic advising.

Academic advising is one of the most important jobs on campus. Before students consider how to do well in their classes, they have to consider which classes to take in the first place. There is an immense strategy that goes into building a semester of courses. Having a meaningful and informed conversation with an advisor can greatly benefit college students. Hopefully, this article made that conversation easier

Xavier Royer

I am currently a full time instructor at a William Penn University, a small private university in Iowa. I am the lone political science faculty member there. In my time teaching, I have already connected with an incredible cohort of students in ways I could never have expected. Partnering with SAGE will allow me the opportunity to help even more students across the globe navigate those tricky questions.

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