Peer Advising

It is when you have a student that our office can’t directly help that your ability to communicate is tested, and this situation is quite common for UAA Drop-In Advising. As a Peer Advisor for UAA, I meet one on one with students for 15 minute quick question sessions where I commonly support students in navigating registration tools like MyPlan and Register.UW. While many of the conversations I have with students involve straightforward scheduling or registration questions, some are far more complex. An example of a more complex student case is someone with multiple registration holds who needs to register for a course that is rapidly filling up which creates a time‑sensitive and stressful situation.

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One skill I am especially proud to have developed over my three years in this role is my ability to support students by creating clear and manageable action plans which involve clearly articulating their next steps after our appointment. I’ve found that these action plans are particularly helpful in complex student situations and instances where our office cannot resolve the problem directly and instead have to refer to another department on campus. After experiencing my own academic crisis during my fourth year of undergraduate studies due to chronic illness, I experienced how overwhelming it is to navigate working with instructors and advisors during a time where the last thing on your mind is coursework. From this experience, I learned firsthand how critical it is to leave an advising meeting knowing exactly what to do next instead of having to pull an action plan out of thin air. Due to this, I now make it a point to articulate a student’s next steps before the meeting ends and check for confirmation that my explanation feels clear and accessible to them. I recently had the opportunity to support a student who was experiencing a health crisis of their own and witnessed how my intentionality around accessible support truly made them feel seen even when our office couldn’t address their problems directly.

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UAA serves a diverse student population - domestic and international undergraduates, as well as transfer students - composed of students with unique backgrounds and communication needs. Understanding this has reinforced that the responsibility is on me to try my best to communicate in a way that is accessible to the student I am working with, rather than expecting them to decode jargon or engage with my preferred form of communication. To ensure that I am doing this I frequently check-in with students to see how they feel about the information I provided and if they express any confusion I provide an alternative explanation. When students are navigating stressful or urgent situations, I also send follow‑up emails with links to relevant resources which ensures that the student has access to relevant resources even if they are too overwhelmed at the moment to utilize them.

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For more complex student cases, I regularly consult with Professional Advising Staff to confirm that my guidance is accurate and that my assessment of the situation is comprehensive. When I first began this role, summarizing a student’s situation succinctly and asking the right questions was extremely challenging. Over time I have gotten better at this, having set this as my yearly progress goal I am now able to ask clear, targeted, and purposeful questions. This is a skill that I have found useful beyond advising but also within my courses, other professional spaces, and when asking questions of myself.