When I started my first position as a full-time faculty member last fall there were obvious challenges related to preparing, teaching, and grading for three classes instead of one but the experience itself was nothing new since I had been teaching for years. The introduction of advising to my routine this fall, however, has been a very different experience.
The first time that I taught I had years of experience as a student to draw on for examples of what kind of teacher I wanted to be. Beyond my experiences with various mentors over the years, I am quickly realizing that I was never advised about choosing courses as an undergraduate because I had a copy of the graduation requirements and I knew what I needed to take. Magnifying this inexperience is the fact that I am still learning about the requirements at my institution, which are sometimes fluid as courses in various departments substitute for others.
As a result, each meeting with a student has felt inefficient as I hurriedly searched for answers to their questions on the school’s somewhat ineffective website. Through this process I am learning a lot but I wish that my education in these areas did not have to come at the price of looking incompetent and, worse, potentially directing students down the wrong paths.
Memoirs of a SLACer 
[…] this semester has been filled with the usual class prep, the new experiences of committee work and advising, and hours upon hours of meetings with students. This final point has led me to realize that […]
[…] for MWF classes and that I didn’t have any time for research. In my second year I started my advising and service duties, adding additional off-campus involvement this year. In that time period I still […]
[…] I started advising students I recognized that I had no idea what I was doing. Since then, I’ve figured out most of the important things but I still have not figured out a […]
[…] In most areas of my transition to a new institution I have been able to draw on my previous experience as a tenure-track faculty member. This has been similar to my mostly-smooth transition from graduate school to life as a tenure-track faculty member. There is one area, though, in which my years as a tenure-track faculty member have not left me feeling any more prepared than I did during my last transition: advising. […]