Academic Advice FAQs

Welcome to college! Your academic advisor is your first and most important mentor—a partner dedicated to helping you successfully transition into college life and lay a solid foundation for your future. Your academic advisor will help you with:

• Mapping your first year: working together with your advisor, you will select the right first-year courses that fulfill general requirements (usually referred to as the “Common Course of Study” or CCS), introduce you to your potential major, and create a manageable course load to ease your adjustment.

• Understanding degree basics: Advisors simplify complex college rules. They’ll help you understand foundational topics like credit hours, GPAs, academic probation, and how to officially track your degree progress.

• Exploring possibilities: Even if you’re undecided, your advisor is here to help you explore different majors and minors through recommended introductory courses and campus connections.

• Connecting you to support: College is a big place! If you are facing academic challenges (like time management or study skills) or personal issues, your advisor is the first person to talk to. We serve as your direct link to tutoring, counseling, career services, and other specialized resources designed to ensure your well-being and success.

Your academic advisor is here to help you to make confident, informed decisions right from day one, setting the trajectory for a successful four years.

Remember: your academic advisor is a crucial mentor and strategic partner throughout your collegiate journey. Even if you already navigated your first year of college successfully, an academic advisor will facilitate your academic success and holistic development by providing expert guidance across several key areas:

• Course planning: They assist you in strategic course selection to ensure you meet degree requirements efficiently, manage your course load effectively, and align your schedule with your long-term goals.

• Degree navigation: Advisors guide you through the processes of major/minor declaration, tracking your progress, and handling general petitions for course substitutions, transfer credit evaluation, and graduation checks.

• Personal and professional growth: Beyond logistics, they foster your personal and professional development by discussing career aspirations, connecting academic paths to real-world opportunities (like internships or research), and helping you cultivate essential skills.

• Resource connection: Advisors serve as a critical bridge to the broader college ecosystem. They are trained to listen and refer you to specialized campus resources when you encounter complex personal or academic challenges requiring expert intervention.

That’s a great question, and it’s true that you’ll receive valuable input from peers, faculty outside our department, and other mentors on campus. However, while those sources offer helpful personal experiences and expanded perspectives on college life, they cannot replace the specialized role of the official academic advisor assigned to you, as Biology major, by the Biology department.

Here is why your assigned advisor in the Biology department is indispensable:

• Official authority and accuracy: Your advisor is prepared to interpret and apply complex academic policies, degree requirements, and most college regulations. Peer advice, while well-intentioned and occasionally helpful, can often be based on outdated, inaccurate, or specific, personal circumstances that do not apply to your situation.

• Specialized program knowledge: your advisor is a faculty member in the Biology department, and as such, they possess in-depth expertise regarding our curriculum, ideal course sequencing, research opportunities, and career paths specific to your field of study. This is knowledge no general peer can offer.

• Holistic and strategic planning: Your advisor has a comprehensive view of your entire four-year plan, and can help you align course selection with long-term professional or graduate school goals. Advisors focus on efficiency and official compliance, ensuring you don’t waste time or credits.

In summary: Think of campus resources and peers as your navigation tools, but your academic advisor is your certified, expert pilot. It is always wise to listen to other opinions, but only your advisor can provide the accurate, official, and personalized academic guidance required to successfully earn your degree.

The Biology department makes every possible effort to advise all Biology majors. Once you declare Biology as your intended major, you will be assigned a faculty member in the Biology department as your academic advisor. In rare cases, due to constraints related to the maximum number of students that can be advised by a faculty member, some first-year students may be advised by another Lafayette faculty member. However, if you are a first-year student being advised by a faculty member outside the Biology department, and have specific questions about academics and/or course scheduling, you can always reach out to the head of the Biology department.

If you already are a Lafayette student, you can find your academic advisor’s name on your Degree Audit page.

The answer is “probably”, but it depends entirely on the nature of your relationship with your advisor and the specific requirements of the letter.

Normally, a person writing a letter of recommendation on your behalf must be able to address the questions posed by the organization (graduate program, employer, fellowship or internship organization, etc.) requesting the letter.  The ideal recommender is usually a faculty member who has seen your academic performance (as your class instructor) and/or your research abilities (as your lab mentor) firsthand. If your Lafayette advisor has not been your class instructor or research mentor, it will be difficult for them to answer some questions required by the organization requesting the letter of recommendation. But, given that your advisor has a general knowledge of your academic performance, they might, in certain cases, be able to write a letter of recommendation for you.

Ultimately, however, the decision is exclusive to your academic advisor. They will assess whether they know you well enough to write an effective and truthful letter that supports your application. If an advisor feels they cannot write a sufficiently strong letter—for instance, if they only know you through quick registration meetings—they will likely decline or suggest a professor who knows your work better. The best course of action is to always ask your advisor directly.

When you ask your advisor for a letter of recommendation, you should provide them with:

1. A copy of your CV/Resume.

2. Your statement of purpose (or a description of the role/program).

3. The specific questions/criteria the letter must address.

This will allow them to quickly decide if they have the knowledge necessary to write the kind of letter you need.

Yes, quite a few! Your academic advisor will not able to save you a seat in a course, open an extra seat in a course that is already full, extend the registration period, help you with technical problems during registration (for these issues you may contact the registrar’s office), advise you on what meal plan to purchase (this site offers information about meal plans), or answer housing (check Residence Life) or parking questions (contact the office of parking and transportation for this). You can also reach out to your peer mentor or your RA for help with all these issues. In order to register for classes, you will need to get a PIN from your advisor; however, your advisor won’t be able to help you if the PIN doesn’t work (we always encourage you to try your PIN in advance to ensure it works correctly).