Navigating Your Academic Journey: A Guide to UTSA Undergraduate Advising Services
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is dedicated to advancing the education of its community and helping students thrive. Academic advising at UTSA serves as a crucial guide, assisting students at every stage of their educational journey. Through personalized support, expert guidance, and a wealth of resources, dedicated academic advisors empower students to achieve their academic and career goals. Ongoing communication with academic advising is critical to student success and timely graduation.
The Role of Academic Advisors
As an admitted student, consider your academic advisors your cheerleaders and coaches during your academic journey. Academic Advisors help students navigate their degree plans and ensure that they meet all degree requirements while adhering to university policy. When planning what courses you will be taking each term, consider the time you would need to dedicate to study and complete your classwork.
Academic advising is a partnership between students and academic advisors.
Accessing Advising Services
Academic Advising is organized into Advising Centers that advise a specific group of majors. Your new student orientation will help acclimate you to the online learning environment at UT San Antonio, provide you an overview of the services you’ll receive from your academic advisors, and inform you about important things to know about your major.
Specialized Programs and Support Systems
UTSA offers a variety of specialized programs and support systems to cater to the diverse needs of its undergraduate student population:
Read also: UTSA Student Population
The Bold Scholars Program: This 4-year program provides support, resources, and community to help students engage early in the university experience, build their network, and participate in career-focused experiential learning across their four-year course of study at UTSA.
The First-Gen & Transfer Student Programs: These programs support students that identify as a first-generation or transfer student as they pursue their undergraduate degree. Programming includes mentorship, student success activities, and community building.
The First-Year Experience Program (FYE): This program is committed to supporting first-year-in-college-students through peer mentorship as they transition into university life.
The Fostering Futures Program: This program is a campus-based program to support Roadrunners who have a history of foster care.
The LEAD Summer Academy: This is an exciting UTSA program for selected first-year students who will start their summer off with an enriching experience.
Read also: Comprehensive UTSA Guide
Financial Support and Resources
UTSA recognizes the importance of financial aid in enabling students to pursue their academic goals. The scholarship is the product of a partnership between the University of Texas at San Antonio, the Hector and Gloria López Foundation, and the UT Foundation. Together, the scholarship provides a unique opportunity for students by removing financial barriers, opening doors to new opportunities, and laying the foundation for generational wealth.
Overcoming Academic Challenges
UTSA provides resources to help students overcome academic challenges and stay on track for graduation:
The Roadrunner Success Hub (RSH): This is a centralized support center designed to help students resolve roadblocks to graduation.
Run It Back (R.I.B): This program is designed for undergraduate students who are on academic probation. The team is ready to support students to ensure a successful academic experience at UTSA. R.I.B is a redemption story about bouncing back after a semester where student grades may have been impacted due to a hardship. The program aims to support participants in achieving their academic goals by helping them develop a personalized academic success plan and addressing any obstacles hindering their performance.
Student Support Services (SSS): This is a TRiO program that provides opportunities for academic development, assists students with basic college requirements and motivates students to successfully complete their postsecondary education.
Read also: Navigating UTSA Student Services
Leveraging Data Analytics for Enhanced Support
UTSA has invested in data analytics to enhance its advising services and provide more targeted support to students. UTSA’s leadership wanted to reinvest in their already successful centralized academic advising services. Their previous data analytics solution derived its predictions primarily from national and international trends. It didn’t accurately reflect the risk factors or opportunities for impactful intervention for their particular student populations. To compensate for this information gap, the UTSA advising team manually collected and analyzed student data to provide to the administration. They made the switch to the Civitas Learning Student Impact Platform.
As UTSA began implementing the Student Impact Platform, the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly forced them to move all their operations online. To maintain a seamless student experience, the UTSA team moved 100% of their new student orientation advising sessions to online one-to-one appointments using the Student Impact Platform’s advising analytics and workflow capabilities. Access to real-time data and a unified student success platform enabled leaders to shift their advising team’s caseload management operating procedures away from time-consuming, cumbersome manual tasks. With the Student Impact Platform, administrators could alleviate advisors of manually determining which students weren’t registered by quickly generating reports to reveal that information.
Once the semester began, academic advisors limited the negative impacts on persistence caused by the pandemic by using the platform to monitor and connect with their students consistently. For example, the advising team supporting teacher certification students focused engagement efforts on those students who were very close to not being eligible to apply for the teacher certification program. At the same time, those advisors working with engineering students focused on providing resources to succeed in a required gateway course because they knew that students who passed the course with a C or higher were more likely to succeed in the major. Seeing students through a dynamic platform unlocked insights that were impossible to access when reviewing student data derived from generic, aggregate risk factors. Leaders further focused the efforts of the advising team on the most vulnerable students by using the Student Impact Platform’s administrative analytics capabilities to identify student populations specific to UTSA that would benefit most from additional support. The data revealed three student groups: readmitted students, holistic review admissions (UTSA’s test-optional admissions program), and historically underrepresented male students.
The Civitas Learning Student Impact Platform also uncovered an opportunity to support students with a 2.0-2.5 GPA risk by connecting them with academic coaching services. Previously academic coaching services were primarily utilized by self-selecting graduate and honors students. UTSA began proactively encouraging academically at-risk students to use academic coaching. Using the Student Impact Platform’s initiative analysis capabilities, leaders could compare the impact of serving high-achieving students versus students at higher risk. The data revealed that new efforts to engage higher-risk students were paying off.
With the Civitas Learning Student Impact Platform, UTSA avoided the 4% pandemic-driven enrollment decline experienced by most of its peer institutions during the fall of 2020. The Civitas Learning Student Impact Platform enabled UTSA’s advising team to provide holistic support for their students when they needed it most. The institution invested in tools to alleviate advising workflow challenges and data disconnects. Students who engaged with academic advising services experienced a 4.4 percentage point lift in persistence. Additionally, proactive efforts to encourage vulnerable students to use academic coaching services resulted in at least a 1.6 percentage point lift in persistence. Access to the Civitas Learning Student Impact Platform provided the institution with the real-time visibility and insight they needed to provide precise interventions to students when needed. Access to a data analytics platform configured to UTSA’s needs provided the team with persistence predictions and a combination of actionable insights they could trust.
Online Learning Support
UTSA offers online degree programs for students seeking a flexible learning environment. Student Success includes a network of resources, programs, and services designed to help students succeed at UT San Antonio Online and beyond.
If you’re a current UT San Antonio student looking to pursue a 100% online degree plan (i.e. change campuses), you will need to complete the Curriculum Change Form. To begin the process, please complete and submit the Curriculum Change Form. Our enrollment counselors will then review the form. Students cannot be enrolled in both campuses (i.e. in-person and 100% online) at the same time. For example, students enrolled in a 100% online degree program cannot take a course offered by the in-person campus, even if it is an internet-based course. Students cannot complete a Campus Change (move from the in-person campus to a 100% online program) if they have exceeded 75 hours in their current major without prior approval. The student would need to submit a 75-hour petition and receive approval before processing can take place.
Health Professions Advising
COS students who have declared the Premedical Sciences Concentration in the B.S. Biology or the B.S. Neuroscience degree programs OR are Biochemistry or Microbiology and Immunology majors can seek health professions advising from Dr. A UGAR is usually a faculty member from the department of your selected major.
Campus Life and Involvement
Participating in a club or organization will give you the opportunity and framework to discover, build, and develop skills needed for your after-college choices, whether it be graduate school, service or work. Living on campus is your best option for convenience, belonging, academic success and all that campus life has to offer.
Mental Health Support
If you or someone you know needs help now, call 911. Notify the operator there is a mental health emergency and ask for trained officers in crisis intervention. The TimelyCare app provides students with access to 24/7 virtual health and well-being support.
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