The next few weeks will be busy ones for Penn State's advisers.

With the majority of undergraduate students set to schedule this month, advisers are meeting with students to help plan for next semester.

The productivity of these meetings depends on the readiness of both the adviser and the student.

Bruce Ellis, administrative director of undergraduate studies for the Smeal College of Business Administration, stressed that advisers are there to assist in student scheduling, not to do the job for them.

"The adviser is there to make sure the student has an appropriate plan," Ellis said.

"It's a lot easier when students take that first step themselves. All the information they need to do that is on the Web, from sample schedules to degree audits."

Jean Landa Pytel, the assistant dean of student services for the College of Engineering, echoed those sentiments.

"The job of our advisers is to answer questions about alternatives and options that our students have," Landa Pytel said.

Not all students are satisfied with the performance of their advisers. Common complaints range from a lack of convenient appointment times to the need for more personalized advising. Some students said their advisers were not able to answer their questions adequately.

Zach Moran (freshman-liberal arts) said he wanted more detailed information on courses than he received.

"They didn't have a lot of advice on which teachers were better or what options I had for different courses of study to pursue. A lot of it seemed like it was hit and miss so far," Moran said.

Other students said they had better experiences with their advisers.

Rebecca Conrad (junior-landscape contracting) said, "Advisers are there to make sure we take what we're supposed to, when we're supposed to, and mine has always done that," Conrad said.

John Moore, University Faculty Senate chair, said the university policy on advising is clear -- students should advise themselves.

And though some students look to their advisers for more than graduation requirements, Moore said this is not necessarily within the mandate of advising.

"The bottom line in advising is that students graduate on time," Moore said.

He added that complaints often arise from students seeing only the shortcomings of the system.

Moore said the current system is an improvement from 30 years ago, but added, "that doesn't mean that everybody couldn't do a better job."

While university policy does place the responsibility of scheduling on the student, advising staffs do offer programs other than appointments to help students.

The official University Undergraduate Advising Handbook is available online at www.psu.edu/dept/dus/unadbk/unadbk.html. Additional advising information can be found at www.psu.edu/advising/.