How Many Advisors Does it Take to Graduate a Senior?

Korrin B.

January 9, 2010 - 9:35 PM

In my case, two - soon to be three.

On Thursday after class, I began my advising on the second floor of Chapman Hall with Professor Louise Bishop. I had her for the first term of my honors college literature sequence and found her to be absolutely fabulous. I quickly adopted her as my Honors College advisor. I remember going into the Office of Academic Advising my freshman year and mostly having them quizzically look at my degree audit and then tell me I needed to talk to someone in the Honors College about my requirements. I have learned to get that look from most people outside of the Honors College. It's as if our general education requirements are some mystical potion that requires two elves, a unicorn, and a wizard to figure out. It's ok though, I feel the same way about general education requirements outside of the Honors College.

Anyway, the point is that next year is my fifth year and next term is the beginning of my honors thesis. I began to get this sense of doom the other day that I was going to end up having completely read my degree audit wrong and find out too late that I hadn't fulfilled all my requirements to graduate. I also began to have an endless stream of questions about my upcoming thesis running through my head. I needed an advisor. It's so nice in college that you so easily have all of these people at your disposal who are there to just advise you in your life. I have a feeling that in the "real world" free advising for any subject doesn't just exist wherever you go. I was also eager to see what I had left in terms of requirements so that I could see if I could fulfill this recent dream of mine to get an art minor.

My meeting with Professor Bishop was fabulous. Within twenty minutes, I had created a task list to get ready for my thesis prospectus class, realized I am much further ahead in requirements than I thought I was, and learned that I could petition to replace one of my final colloquia classes with an art class, thereby leaving more space for my proposed art minor! I walked down the steps of Chapman, onward to Hendricks Hall.

I'm afraid that I must make a slight political jab at this point in my post. It is necessary though because, as one of my PPPM professors said in a class I took sophomore year, people who sit on the fence get splinters. The John Jaqua Center was recently added to the UO campus, near Oregon Hall, the UO Health Center, and the Hamilton Residence Halls. The shinning, new, state of the art building is surrounded by an infinity pool. Oh, and did I mention that it is only available to roughly 515 students? It is the new home to tutoring for athletes and all other, roughly, 19,500 UO students are restricted to the first floor, which I have been told has a coffee shop. I am all for athletes getting tutored and I understand that we don't get to say where donors choose to put their money, but this has become a clear situation of inequality on the UO campus.

Why do I bring it up here? Because on Thursday, I was heading to Hendricks Hall. Hendricks Hall is home not only to the Department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management (my fabulous major), but also to the UO Career Center. Hendricks Hall is an old building. It has that unique smell of aging space and creaks like an old house when you walk through it. Until this year, undergraduate advising was held in the basement of the building in a tiny, dark room that became known as the Harry Potter Room to all who frequented it. The building could use a serious upgrade. It would not only be good for the space itself, but also for the departments within it. PPPM is an amazing major. I often refer to it as the hidden gem of the University. However, despite the brilliant interdisciplinary nature of the major and despite its incredible change the world one scholar at a time attitude, the department is often unknown to the general student population or thought of as some joke of a hippie major. When people do recognize my major, it is often accompanied by them laughing and saying something along the lines of, "Oh, yeah, that's in the Career Center place over in Hendricks, right? You guys get a crappy building. Sucks to be you." I just smile, knowing that despite them being in the fabulous Lillis Complex, I have the glory of a major that proactively seeks to make the world a better place. Anyway, my point is that perhaps an upgrade to our space and funding directed toward our program could help us gain a greater stand and increased respect within the campus community. I mean, we're not asking for an infinity pool or anything.

I digress.

I walked into Hendricks and was delighted to find that advising was no longer in the smelly Harry Potter cave, but instead in an upstairs office with a window! I sat down, preparing for the worst. I figured within minutes, my PPPM major advisor would be telling me I had thirty more classes to take that I hadn't accounted for. The PPPM major requirements recently changed, so I was a bit confused on how it all affected me. To make a long story short, I realized that by the end of next term I will be done with my Nonprofit Administration minor and I only have one more class next year (in addition to my thesis credits) before my major is complete! I was much more on track than I expected. Which means...

I meet with advisor number three this upcoming Thursday. I will be declaring my art minor!