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Throughout your career at Cal, you will have many questions for which you will need to find answers. There are many people who will be available to help you in your times of need, including advisors, mentors, and peer counselors. This chapter is devoted to explaining the various advising and mentoring programs available to CEE students. Included in this page, you'll find info on your Student Affairs Advisor and your Faculty Advisor while following pages will have this information:
Well, let's get on with the show.Advisors
As an undergraduate in CEE, you will be assigned two different advisors, each serving a different purpose. They are your Student Affairs Advisor and your Faculty Advisor.
Student Affairs Advisor
Student affairs advisors (sometimes called Student Affairs Officers or SAOs) can be thought of as "paperwork advisors." They can help you with most anything related to the college of engineering that requires you to file paperwork. This includes reviewing major and college requirements, schedule changes, petitions, degree checks, referrals to special programs, and graduation. They also provide general information and advice on academic issues. If you have a problem that they cannot solve, they can usually tell you where to go.
The Student Affairs Office is in 308 McLaughlin and the phone number is 510-642-7594. Currently, drop in advising hours are M-F 9 am to 11:45 am, and appointments in the afternoon. Hours change sometimes (and there are a few quirky exceptions that could really ruin your day if you need to have a problem solved quickly but can't see an advisor) so our best advice is that you stop by at the beginning of the semester and pick up a schedule.
Faculty Advisor
Your faculty advisor's (FA) role is quite different from your student affairs advisor. Their chief responsibility to you is to act as a mentor. Your advisor is there to provide you with guidance on your field of interest and career objectives. They will help you decide what classes to take to meet your individual career goals. That is why you need to get an advisors code from your FA each semester before you can use TeleBEARS to register for classes.
The relationship you have with your FA can vary between two extremes. Some students only speak to their FA when it is necessary. In other words, they see their FA when they need their advisors code, and that's it. On the other hand, some students become very close to their advisors, visiting them and speaking with them on a frequent basis. The type of relationship you have with your advisor depends on your needs. Our advice is to speak often with your advisor, they can give you a wealth of great information and advise about the field of CEE and how you will fit into it. If you do not get the technical mentoring from your faculty advisor that you need, then request a change to a faculty advisor that will help you.
Your Responsibility
Caution: while both of your assigned advisors are available to answer question about the requirements for your degree, it is not their responsibility to make sure you meet them. The College makes it very clear that IT IS ULTIMATELY YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE SURE YOU FULFILL ALL THE REQUIREMENTS TO OBTAIN YOUR DEGREE. Your student affairs advisor will answer any question you have regarding the particular degree requirements, your faculty advisor will help you decide which classes to take to meet your career goals, but eventually it falls on your shoulders to make sure you do everything necessary to graduate.
Changing Advisors
When you enter Cal, you are assigned both a student affairs advisor and faculty advisor. In theory, you are supposed to have the same advisors during your entire stay at here, but this is rarely the case. Generally, your student affairs advisor won't change unless he or she leaves and is replaced. Few students, however, have the same FA during their entire career at Cal. Advisor assignments change for faculty every few years, and your advisor may switch from being an undergraduate advisor to either a graduate advisor or no advisor at all. When that happens, the student affairs office assigns you a new advisor. If this happens to you, just live with it. If you really liked your previous advisor, there's no reason you can't continue to have the same relationship with him or her. You'll just have to get your advisor code from somebody else. Besides, this will give you an opportunity to get a different perspective on things.
You may find it necessary at some time to change your adviser yourself. Perhaps you are not getting along with your advisor (sometimes personalities just clash) or your faculty advisor has entirely different interests than you and can't provide you with the kind of guidance you need. Or maybe there is some other reason you feel it necessary to change advisors. Whatever the reason, if you want to switch advisors, speak to the Student Affairs Office. They are usually pretty relaxed about switching advisors, making such a change relatively painless. However, you should not change advisors just on a whim or for silly reasons.
But my student affairs advisor doesn't have time to tell
me about thermodynamics. Let's move on to talk about.....