Dear College Advisers

It is your job to HELP your students, and make sure they take the classes they need to take, and that they get to graduate. Ignoring your students requests for help for months is completely unacceptable. They shouldn't have to spend hours going through other people to find someone else who can help them with something that is your job to do.

Let's say there's a hypothetical student, who totally isn't me, who is in their senior year. Let's say this student gives you the simple task of confirming that they will be all set to graduate at the end of the year, assuming they pass all the classes they are scheduled to take that year. Let's say they ask you think in the middle of first semester of the year, giving you plenty of time to get an answer. It is not okay for you to keep blowing them off, ignoring their e-mails, and telling them "I'll e-mail you" and then not doing so. Maybe this student needs to know before the end of the first week of second semester, so that if they need to change their schedule they can do so while they're still allowed to add classes.

This student shouldn't have to spend tons of time, going through a few different departments, trying to find someone else who can help them. Especially when it's such a simple task, that once they find someone who can help them, even though that person isn't in their office so the student is stuck just e-mailing them, the student gets a completely satisfactory response within a couple hours, completely solving all their problems. This is your job, your responsibility, and it was a simple task, just do it.

So if you're going to be an adviser, then actually be an adviser.
-SF