Advising

You can better use your advisor by consulting with him or her when you need academic, professional, and even personal advice. While many students go through Tufts knowing only their advisor's signature, such a course of action deprives them of a potential source of useful knowledge.

Advisors who are doing their jobs well can suggest multiple academic alternatives to assist in solving students’ problems. If you find you have an advisor who is having trouble gauging your interests or concerns, find one who is better able to do so! The Psychology Department counts on students figuring out their needs and acting on them. No advisor will be insulted if you switch to one who knows more than he or she does about behavior modification, human engineering, or clinical psychology. The advising system is here to help you, not the professors.

Since professors are knee deep in advisees at registration, be smart and consult with your advisor at other times. A list of current office hours for all professors may be obtained online (Click Here), in the department office or on the professor's door. Non-registration periods are the right time to explore career goals, what's turning you on in your courses, internships, books, etc. Most of us teach at Tufts because we enjoy teaching students. Help us to know you better in order to advise you better. Advisors depend on students expressing interests, preferences, strengths, and weaknesses; based on this knowledge, an advisor can then help an advisee see choices.

You can certainly get through Tufts on advice from friends in your dorms. They know the fun courses, the good teachers, and they know how to ace scheduling dilemmas. Your advisor knows the professional world outside of Tufts, as well as the academic world within. You need access to both kinds of information, inside and outside Tufts. Advisors are meant to help you in both areas. Consult the list of faculty, along with their special areas of interest if you wish to find an advisor who specializes in a specific area, but keep in mind that you do not need to have an advisor with the exact same interests as you.

For more information on how to declare your advisor, visit Undergraduate FAQs.