Students
Academic Advisor
Your Academic Advisor will teach on your course and is there to support your academic development, providing advice on how to get the most out of your learning experience and about related opportunities and career paths.
Your Course Director, or Course Administrator, will tell you who your Academic Advisor is.
You will usually meet with your Academic Advisor at least once per semester and they are likely to remain with you throughout your course. Initial meetings with your advisor may be specifically set up by them, or scheduled into your timetable, but if you need their help between organised meetings you can contact them. Later, you will take responsibility for organising the meetings.
Preparing for a meeting
Your Academic Advisor will prepare for your meeting by looking at how you are progressing. They have access to the Student Engagement Monitoring System (SEMS) to view your attendance, how you are using resources (such as the library, MyBeckett and printing) and your previous marks. They will use these indicators to discuss with you what support might be useful. You too should prepare for the meeting by thinking about how things are going and trying to identify anything you need help with.
In the meeting
The meeting with your advisor will be relaxed and your advisor will chat with you to discuss your academic progress, how you best learn, and your career aspirations. Together you will identify any help that you need. Your advisor may be able to help you directly but, if you need help beyond their knowledge (e.g. specialist learning support, money matters, wellbeing advice, medical issues or accommodation matters), they may direct you to other services. You can information about all these services under the Support tab in MyBeckett. During the meeting the advisor may make notes, which they will discuss and agree with you. These help you both remember what you have discussed and are useful in preparing for your next meeting. If you want your advisor to keep something confidential then you should tell them and they will discuss this with you.
There is also information about the Academic Advisor’s role in your Course Handbook.
