FAU- Advisors and Staff

Rumor: FAU- Boca Raton campus, advisors and staff are unfriendly, unsupportive, and unorganized.

To find out if this was true or not, I stood outside the Student Support Services Building and surveyed 100 undergrad students over a period of four days (at least the ones that would talk to me). I asked which department they went to, if that department was efficient and effective, if he/she remembered the name of the person who helped them, and who their academic advisor is.

I was surprised to find out that only 23 students could remember the name of the person they talked to. You (the student) should always write down the persons’ name. If something happens, like your tuition gets lost in the system, you’re going to want the persons’ name who took your money. Keep records and receipts. You might need them. The staff working in the Cashier’s, Registrar’s Office, Financial Aid, etc. does not introduce themselves to the student (usually only advisors do), so make sure you ask.

Going back to loosing tuition--a student, let’s call him Bob, told me that he paid for Fall tuition during Summer semester. When the Fall semester came around he had all these holds. He went to the Registrar’s Office, who sent him to the Controller’s Office. There the secretary was rude and short tempered with him. She told him the he didn’t pay for Fall, so he showed her the receipt the he kept from the Cashier’s. As she is typing away on her computer she says that “there is no record of you paying in the system…oh wait…it went toward your Summer semester, not Fall. You have to go to the Cashier’s.” He went just to get sent back to the Controller’s Office, at that time he asked to see someone above the rude secretary. He couldn’t remember the lady’s name, but with a few clicks of her mouse she changed the semester the tuition was for. Seems to me that the Controller’s Office knows what they are doing, just not their secretary.

Most of the students I surveyed went to Financial Aid, the Cashier’s, and/or the Registrar’s Office. There was a consensus of good things being said. The staff was very effective and informative, they knew what they were doing, and they were nice about it. Financial Aid helped one student find a grant so she could stay in her apartment and another find a loan to help him pay for his car and car insurance. The only bad thing to be said was the wait time. A couple of students had to leave and come back after their classes. Some students recommend that Financial Aid get a few more employees.

Fifty-eight students knew their academic advisor by name. The rest just go to the first available advisor and don’t keep track. One female student, lets call her Betty, had nothing but nice things so say about art advisor; she helped her with classes for her double degree in art and business and would even call her to make sure everything was going smoothing and set up their next appointment. Betty though she had it great until her advisor got transferred out of the art department, at that time Betty’s new advisor became a teacher with no experience in academically advising students. Betty was left “shit outta luck.” Another student, Tom, a business major said his advisor is “helpful, supportive, and organized. He always has my up-to-date transcripts printed out for me, so I know exactly what I need.” The only bad thing Tom could think of was the secretary for business advising, she was “very impatient and could use a course in etiquette.”

After conducting this survey, I believe that FAU-Boca Raton campus has very helpful, supportive, and efficient advisors and staff (well, most of the staff). I would recommend the staff introduce themselves to the students…it’s the polite thing to do. Also, many of the problems that frustrated students seem to boil down to the secretaries of the advisors and service departments (i.e. Controller’s Office). Secretaries are the first person one sees when entering into an office, they should be cordial, patient, and knowledgeable…which FAU is lacking. But really it’s the advisors that matter to the students and they are by far a great help.

T