Academic Advising Tips to Support Your Success

Academic Advising at Montana State University is a collaborative process between students, faculty, and professional advisors designed to empower students.The Advising Commons provides information about navMSU, Degreeworks and much more in their advisor resources.

1. DegreeWorks Notes: A Small Advising Practice with Big Impact

In response to our recent accreditation review, MSU completed a Year 0 faculty advising assessment survey this fall. Thank you for your work on this. The Campus Advising Assessment Team (CAAT) is using these data to help develop tools that support strong faculty advising. This is a great moment to reflect on our advising practices and consider one small, high-impact step that supports both advising quality and assessment.

One simple practice we encourage is adding brief advising notes in DegreeWorks. Many advisors already use the notes field to paste the advising PIN so students can easily find it, and that is a great starting point. Adding one or two short sentences at the same time is often quick to do since you are already in the notes section, and it can be helpful for both students and faculty. Notes like this create a shared record, support continuity over time, and help students take ownership of next steps. They also directly support two MSU advising goals: clear communication and fostering student self-reliance.

If you already do this, thank you. You are doing important work, and it really does make a difference. If you are not currently adding notes, we hope you will consider adding just a bit of context during or after your advising meetings. Showing students what you are writing also helps them understand that they can return to these notes later.

Rule of thumb for a helpful advising note: Capture what was discussed, what the student plans to do next, and any key decision points to revisit later.

For example: Champ is currently struggling in M 171 and plans to see how the next exam goes. He will email if it looks like he needs to drop. Next semester, he plans to register for the courses in his degree plan unless he needs to repeat M 171.

Learn more about MSU’s advising goals and assessment work

Important upcoming dates:

March 1 – Email students to remind them that advising is approaching. Include your advising availability and instructions for scheduling an appointment.

March 9 – Advising appointments begin.

March 25 – Registration opens.