Class registration can make or break a student’s semester. Whether or not they get the classes they want can throw a wrench into their plans for the rest of their time at Loyola. Faculty advisors and the Academic Advising and Support Center (AASC) play a vital role in guiding students through this process.
Accounting Department Chair and Professor of Accounting JP Krahel has been a faculty advisor helping students for over a decade. He believes his role as a faculty advisor is to show students what is possible and help them reasonably achieve their goals while ensuring they do not push themselves too hard or go too easy.
“You always have students who aren’t pushing themselves hard enough, and students who are pushing themselves too hard, and I worry about them on both ends. You know, the students who aren’t pushing themselves hard enough will end up regretting that they didn’t maximize their time here. The students who push too hard will sometimes end up burning out or not doing well at anything because they’re trying to do everything,” Krahel said.
He said one of the major barriers that gets in his way of helping students achieve their goals is that some students just will not reach out to meet with him until course registration is around the corner. He believes that the advisor-student relationship needs to go beyond that and that some students need to take more of an active role in setting their academic path.
“Yeah, because I want to meet with all of them, but it seems like a lot of students will only come in when it’s time to get permission to register,” Krahel said. “If a student shows some level of initiative, that makes my job easier. So, I appreciate if they thought about it beforehand instead of just showing up being like, ‘Tell me what to do.’ I don’t want to tell you what to do. I want us to work together and make what you want to happen, happen.”
One student who regrets not taking a more proactive role in his course registration process and meeting with his advisor is Jalen McCauley-Thomas ‘25. He was meant to graduate in January 2025, but due to an oversight, he missed a course requirement that he needed to take his senior capstone, and he will now need to take one class in the spring semester.
“If you don’t have the right order, it can affect your graduation, like when you graduate. For example, they were supposed to give me Intro to Communication in my first semester because it’s my intro to Communications. So, now this year, this semester, I’m taking it and in place of that could have been my capstone,” McCauley-Thomas said.
While McCauley-Thomas is frustrated with the situation, he understands that it probably could have been avoided if he had been more active in meeting with his advisor. He feels he underutilized them during his time at Loyola.
“The only time I really go to them or email them, is, you know, around the time when you’re looking for classes,” McCauley-Thomas said. “I think it’s best you use them for guidance, like, what should you do, and what path you should go down basically.”
Academic Advising Specialist Kylie Simonson said that her office’s biggest role is to work hand in hand with faculty advisors. She believes it is important to make sure students can take ownership and be active in their education.
“We never want students to feel like they need to figure everything out themselves, but we do want students to know that it’s extremely important to take ownership of your own education and of your own academic program and to make sure that you’re being proactive and holding yourself accountable to making the right progress,” Simonson said.
Registration is coming up, and it started Wednesday, Oct. 23 for the Class of 2025, and continuing each consecutive Wednesday for other class years. Oct. 30 for the Class of 2026, Nov. 6 for the Class of 2027, and Nov. 13 for the Class of 2028. Contact your faculty advisor or visit AASC in Maryland Hall 138 for course registration assistance. To figure out who your faculty advisor is, you can find that information by visiting the Loyola Self-Service website, selecting the ‘Academics’ tab, then ‘Student Planning’, ‘Plan & Schedule’, then finally ‘Advising’.
