In the most honest standpoint, Professor Shiv's presentation was not new information. A lot of my current advisement strategies come from my own experience as a former student. As a transfer student, I experienced a lot of technical issues and confusions to determine what classes I needed to take. Because of this, I often relied on the help of my advisors. While my advisor was an overall friendly individual, there was always a long line of students waiting: causing him to rush through his advisement. In addition, he usually lacked confidence of his advisement due to his constant business travels (always out of the office and had little experience with advisement). Constantly feeling unsure and rushing through his advisement, I always felt like a nuisance and remained what Shiv described a "high maintenance" individual.
Ever since I started working for my university, I always think about myself as a former student. I never want my students to feel and go through the same things I did and knew it was all up to me. A few months ago, I had a student from my university's online campus that was clearly in distress. After going back and forth, I learned that the student attempted to turn in his tuition payment to his advisor, but couldn't reach out to her due to her office being closed. Since the situation wasn't unusual, I had an immediate answer and felt very confident on how to resolve the issue. In addition to smiling and speaking in a happy tone, I also emphasized with the student: which I believe is critical in decision-making. Empathy is defined as the ability to share and relate the feelings of others. In this case, I knew exactly how the student felt on not receiving the help he wanted. By relating to the student, I often find myself expressing my true emotions during the resolution process (Somogyi, 2013). For this case, I explained to the student how important immediate assistance is to me. As a suggestion, I recommended him to change his advisement location to us to receive local-time advisement: in addition to be able to process his payment. The student agreed and was satisfied by the decision.
While many of the questions that come in my office are general, there are some cases where I come across some very unusual situations. A couple weeks ago, I had a potential student come into my office asking for some general information about what degree programs we offer. Everything was going in order until the person asked me about using a military benefit that I've never processed before. I started to feel very nervous and often stumbled on explaining how the benefit is used. Likely overhearing my struggles, my boss ended up interrupting us and answered the question. Since the student had other questions to ask, he ended up talking to my boss rather than me: which continued even after he was admitted to the university. The mistake I made was that I kept going. Rather than talking with uncertainty, I should have been honest and asked the individual if he doesn't mind me asking my boss for clarifications.
References:
Shiv, B. (2011). Brain Research at Stanford: Decision Making [Video file]. Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc
Somogyi, R., Buchko, A., & Buchko, K. (2013). Managing with empathy: Can you feel what I feel? Journal of Organizational Psychology. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1470425153/fulltextPDF/CE275E3C16174E05PQ/1?accountid=27203
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