Vick Center for Strategic Advising and Career Counseling

 

Students who have not declared a major, are pre-major or are in between majors are eligible to join the Vick center. This center houses advising for the School of Undergraduate studies at UT. While students are still exploring majors, they remain in the School of Undergraduate Studies, which is housed in the Division of Academic Affairs. The Vick Center is an important component of student success at UT because they assist students in finding coherent paths through the university that suit their academic and career interests, focusing on students who are unsure of their majors or who are considering a change.

 

In addition, unlike the University of Washington, UT does not have a designated advising office for underrepresented students such as, first generation, ethnic minorities or low income students. Rather, these underrepresented students also see advisers at the Vick Center before they have chosen a major.  

 

The Vick Center for Strategic Advising and Career Counseling Mission 

To facilitate informed decision-making about academic and career choices by providing effective, learning-centered, developmentally-based academic advising and career counseling to undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.

 

This mission statement seems driven by providing support for students so that they can then make educated decisions academically and be properly prepared for a career.

 

How Academic Advisers at the Vick Center Impact Student Success

• Major Exploration- Advisers assist students in choosing majors by accessing their interests and strengths.

• Ensure a high-quality core curriculum by working closely with the other colleges and schools to set and enforce standards for the courses required of all undergraduate student.

• Registration- Discuss classes and registration information. Remove holds and offer AP, IB, and CLEP placement exams.

• Academic Planning- Answer questions about double majoring and undergraduate research. Discuss internal transfer application, internships, volunteering, and study abroad.

• Academic Difficulty & Scholastic Probation- Discuss dropping a class or changing a class to pass/fail and initiate the corresponding processes if possible. File probation and academic warning paperwork. 

• Students are assigned to both an academic advisor and a career counselor.

• The center is also organized into cross-functional teams where the advisors and career counselors are on smaller teams together rather than assigned to teams by their job function.

• The advisor to student ratio is 1 to 200, while career counselor to student ratio is much higher at 1 to 800.