4 Questions Academic Advisors Should Ask Students before Recommending Students to Change Majors

I would say Career Advisors and Academic Advisors can be a dynamic duo in higher education. If I’m super honest though, sometimes I feel that some of my colleagues tend to be real dream killers when they recommend to students that they change majors when the students don’t perform well right away. Academic advisors play the role of focusing on students’ academics so students graduate with the amount of credits that they need. Unfortunately, there’s a lot that can be going on with students’ academics than just their grades.

When I was a college access counselor, I talked to students a lot about their grades. Far too often, I learned that students did not know how to study or they didn’t know how to adjust their study style for college or the different type of subject they were learning in college. I also would ask them if anyone had asked them these types of questions about their study habits, including their academic advisors, and I was informed that I was the first person to do so. As a result, this gave me the perspective that students don’t always do poorly in classes, because they don’t have the ability to perform well, but because no one taught them how to do it successfully.

Failing a course is not a great experience. I also know that students sometimes wait too long to get help. When they don’t do that well in a class, it makes students feel like the career they want to pursue, or even being in college overall isn’t attainable for them. That’s when they come into my office, or even their academic advisor sends them to career services. What I have found though, is that sometimes students aren’t asked enough questions that give them insight to how they need help with their courses. I often see a light go off in their faces, and they become more aware of changes they need to make to literally make their dreams come true. These are the questions that I ask students when they face academic challenges before I am willing to support a change in their major or career goals:

Do you know your learning style?

We all have a preference for how our brain makes sense of information. This is our learning style. When you know this, then you can support your learning to either find information that fits this learning style or advocate for more of what you need.

What are your study skills?

You will get a range of answers here. Some will outright tell you that they don’t study, or their study routine solely involves looking over their notes. One study technique is not appropriate for all subjects. For math, students should be doing practice problems, and in English they should probably be writing notes in the margins of their novels or articles assigned for class. If students don’t quite get that different subjects often times require them to study differently, then they won’t make the shift to perform their best.

Have you tried tutoring?

When students make it into college, it proves their mental ability in some respects, but some students think that going to tutoring when they’re not doing well in a course means that “I’m dumb”. They will not go to tutoring when they need help to prove that they can do well on their own, and their pride inhibits them from getting the assistance they need. This attitude leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy when rooted doubts about one’s ability to do well fosters a greater need to prove oneself, and then they do not seek the appropriate resources to support their success.

Not only do the students with something to prove shy away from tutoring, but there are also those students that never had to study or get help to do well in school. These students just seemed to fly through their high school classes by barely doing their homework. They don’t realize that in college there may be a higher level of difficulty, so admitting that they need help is also a threat to their ego about their performance, and may impact whether they feel they belong in college as well.

Lastly, some students don’t go to tutoring, because they simply don’t know where to find it. They may also not like or feel comfortable in the group environment of some college tutoring centers. When suggesting to students that they go to tutoring, it is not only important to bring up the topic, but to talk more in debt about why they may not have done it yet, show them how to access it, and set realistic expectations about what the experience will be like when they arrive.

 Are you feeling challenged in the classroom?

Ever heard that “curiosity killed the cat”? Well…. Curiosity actually sparks motivation and drive in human beings, especially when it comes to academic success. Many students need to feel interested in a subject to be inspired to learn and do their best work for the class. There are students bored to tears in their college classrooms, and their motivation to do the work, sometimes even go to class has been blown to smithereens by large lecture halls, monotonous lectures, and wordy PowerPoint presentations. Challenging students to find ways to make learning engaging for themselves, rather than relying on their professors to entertain them, can be monumental in shifting their attitudes about owning their experience for in higher education.

When I’m hearing my students describe these answers, sometimes I like to bring it home with another inquiry: Tell me about a class you enjoyed? Once I’ve heard this story, then I also ask them: “How was that different from what’s going on in this particular class”. This will also open the door to other things going on for them that is important to their learning environment. It is often the key question to getting to the root of what is not making them successful.

Once these areas are explored, then I get into the big picture about the career. There are sometimes students that understand better during the course of the conversation about their performance that they need to try harder, and these students are willing to put forth the effort to do what needs to be done to improve their grades. These students not only move forward in their desired career goals, but are now equipped with increased self-awareness about what they need to succeed and campus tools and resources to help them do so.

Alternatively, there are students who realize that based on what they would need to do better in the course, then whatever this class has to do with their initial goals isn’t that serious for them, and they do decide to change majors or careers. There’s no right answer, but asking these questions as least gives the former students a fighting chance and will even revitalize their self-esteem. It gives students a better sense of control to make decisions about their futures, rather than someone telling them what is or isn’t possible for them based on their mistakes. It helps the students feel empowered to succeed. After all, isn’t that why we’re here?