My time in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences has been honestly great so far. My coursework has been engaging and my professors have been nothing but helpful. There has, however, been a bit of a recurring hiccup through it all: the academic advising system.
I can’t speak for other senior colleges or departments, but I’ve noticed advising is virtually inaccessible for HSS students. The Navigate app is hailed for its convenience but appointment listings have been hard to come by for quite some time now.
I distinctly remember the appointment listings were completely empty even before the shift to online classes and services, including “drop-in” times.
I realized how inconvenient advising can be for humanities majors when talking to my friend in civil engineering. She explained that she didn’t know what she was going to schedule for the upcoming semester because she hadn’t met with her designated advisor yet.
That was such a foreign concept to me. Designated advisor? Mandatory meeting? I figured most of us had been winging our college experience with our degree audits and general catalogs in hand, fingers crossed we didn’t skip over any scheduling requirements. 
It’s lucky I’ve only been looking into declaring another major because I really don’t know what I would do if I needed help with a more immediate issue.
I’ve very cautiously scheduled all of my classes for the past three semesters, trying my best to stay on track with my goals. This method leaves a lot of room for error though, as there’s no official resource to help account for any overlap or to manage finicky requirements for either major.
I had just planned on taking the necessary classes for another degree and eventually making it official sometime before I graduate. It’s the easiest option and the best way to avoid having to send out mass emails to department advisors who probably couldn’t offer much assistance even if they wanted to.
It’s time for the University to polish the academic advising system — because as it stands right now, it’s extremely and almost comically inconvenient. Advising should be more readily available to students of all colleges to help them with whatever help they might need, from basic scheduling questions up to career planning and graduate advising.
It goes without saying that everyone has a lot on their plate right now, so I can understand there may be immediate difficulties in making a more accessible appointment schedule. However, the long-standing obstacles between students and advisors desperately need fixing.
Emily Davison is a 19-year-old anthropology sophomore from Denham Springs.