Short version if you’re in a hurry or in denial about spring quarter starting tomorrow:
*Redesigned advising page
*New tool for scheduling appointments
*More peer advising hours
*Dropins renamed Quick Questions
Longer version if you like knowing the background and “why” behind our actions:
The general consensus from the survey respondents regarding adviser contact was that you would prefer a mix of appointments and dropin advising times. We have decided to pilot a few new programs this spring to increase the accessibility of the CSE advising staff. We appreciate your patience as we try out various methods of scaling our services up to the increasing demand:
https://www.cs.washington.edu/
*The ‘Dropin’ format will be the same style, but we’re re-naming it ‘quick questions’. Quick questions are only meant to be 5-10 minute advising appointments. If you think it might take longer than that, you should schedule an appointment. You can now schedule 15 minute appointments or 25 minute appointments. EX: “Easy” graduation appointments where you know you have everything in place can be a quick question, detailed planning or any complications that you foresee should be a scheduled appointment.
*Peer advisers will be staffing the front desk between 10 and 3 *most* days so you can come to ask them quick questions when you see the sign at the right of the front desk showing they are in.
*There will be online advising appointments available for those who have trouble coming into campus or if you just prefer that method of interaction. We’ll be using gmail hangouts/chat for these appointments. If you’re away on an internship, this might be easier than a detailed email conversation.
We hope that these improvements will help us serve the CSE student community better moving forward. Wait times will hopefully improve with the new ‘quick question’ format and the increased availability of individual appointments.
As always, if there are no appointment times that work for you and you can’t come to quick questions, you can always reach out to us on ugrad-advisor@cs.washington.
Thank you everyone and we’ll see you soon!
~CSE Advising