JACKSON BORMAN | STAFF REPORTER | jborman@butler.edu

Butler students are meeting with their academic advisors and registering for spring courses. With midterms, fall break and the beginning of all things fall, this can be a stressful time for some students.

First-year student Alana Gianatasio said she is feeling this stress.

“You have to figure out how to sign up for the classes that you want to take by yourself, which is going to be stressful,” Gianatasio said.

Luckily, Butler students have the luxury of faculty advisers within their respective colleges. These are professors who meet with students one-on-one to help them decide which classes to take for their respective majors.

“My advisor is Peter Prescott, he is really smart and willing to help you do whatever you want to do,” Gianatasio said. “He helped me change my major.”

Butler’s advisors can help students make sense of what can sometimes be a confusing process.

“He explained a lot of things to me, like what courses I should take and how they will fit into things that I’ve already taken,” Gianatasio said.

After these meetings, students are left to create and submit their schedules online via my.butler.edu.

This can be a stressful time for the advisors as well. Casey Kelly is an advisor within the college of communication here. He said he knows that this time of year can be busy.

“I have learned to manage the scheduling, but I only have a couple of advisees. Some faculty have upwards of thirty students that they have to schedule meetings with, which can obviously pile up,” Kelly said.

Despite this, advisors are determined to keep students on the path to graduation.

“My main goal is to keep students on track. Whether that is reminding them of course requirements or community requirements, my job is to make sure that they are prepared for graduation,” Kelly said.

Indiana University and DePauw University are two other Indiana schools that have advisors as a resource for students during the registration process, but it can work very differently.

At Indiana University, students meet with an academic advisor whose only job is to advise students on their class schedules. While the advisors are tied to each college within the university, they do not teach any classes.

Once students meet with their advisors, they sign up for classes entirely online.

First-year student Michael Conger is currently going through the process of signing up for spring courses at IU Bloomington.

“It’s not very stressful. The hardest part is figuring out when and how you can register.  They don’t make it very easy to understand.  It’s kind of a convoluted process, but once you get everything straight, it goes pretty smoothly,” Conger said.

DePauw University is located in Greencastle, Indiana and has over two thousand students. DePauw’s registration process is similar to Butler’s. Each student meets with a faculty advisor the week after fall break and then completes their registration by signing up for classes online.

It is suggested that DePauw students come to advising meetings prepared with their short term and long term goals so that the faculty advisors can work efficiently and give quality advice that lines up with the student’s ideas. These faculty advisors are professors as well, so it is a busy time of year for them.

At DePauw, priorities for class registration are determined by the student’s last name. The student body is divided into four groups and then arranged so that a different group has first priority every semester.

DePauw junior Jordan Watt is not stressed about signing up for classes.

“You get used to it as you get older. [Signing up for classes] is pretty confusing, especially as a freshman,” Watt said.