UPDATES AS OF MARCH 23
Howdy everyone, I ask that you please read this carefully and reach out to any of the advisors for any follow up questions that you may have.
Appointments
Out of an abundance of caution and for the well-being of the advising staff, campus members and our students, effective today, we will no longer offer face-to-face advising sessions. As an alternative, we will only offer virtual advising appointments via Zoom until further notice.
We strongly recommend that students download this free application available for Mac, PC, Apple iOS & Android devices. There is an option to join a Zoom meeting from a browser. If any student prefers this method, Chrome is the preferred browser to utilize the majority of features offered in Zoom. However, the Zoom app is strongly recommended.
Students will still utilize the Navigate portal to make an appointment. As a friendly reminder, students can access the online appointment system, by clicking here and select LA-Liberal Arts Undergraduate Advising for the College and then select LA-ECON-See Additional Details as the location. If you currently have a scheduled appointment, it will now be conducted as an online appointment.
When you make an appointment, do not select “LA-Online Advising” as the reason for your appointment. You can select any of the other reasons as our appointments will now be conducted virtually. You will also see special instructions on how to access the advisor’s Zoom meeting for your advising session. These virtual meeting rooms will also have a waiting room. When the advisor is ready to begin your session, the advisor will bring you in from the online waiting room.
Please note, although the appointment times will be listed for 30 minutes in Navigate, each session will be limited to 20 minutes. The primary reason is that at the conclusion of each session, an advisor will need to enter their notes for the session and send the student any follow up information/documentation to the student’s TAMU email account (ex. Short-term planning sheet to help with registration).
With this in mind, if a student is more than 5 minutes late to their online advising session, an advisor may cancel the appointment and a student will need to reschedule for a later date. If you have any trouble utilizing Zoom, please email the advisor whom you have an appointment with to make different arrangements.
Walk-In Advising
We will not offer any walk-in advising sessions here in the advising office until further notice. We may experiment with a virtual walk-in advising option via Zoom at a later date. If this becomes an option, I will send out a follow up email.
Q-Drop & Withdraw Requests
Given these changes, I want all students to know that if anyone wishes to Q-drop a class or classes, you can email a completed Q-drop form to one (not all) of the advisors. However, this document will only be accepted if it is sent from your @tamu.edu email address. If you can include your formal signature, that would be great! However, if you cannot, please include the following statement in the body of your email message:
“I, {insert name & UIN}, give you my permission to Q- drop {insert course name and number}.”
If a student needs to withdraw from all classes, you can do so via a hyperlink in the MyRecord portal of the Howdy website. If a student plans to return for the Fall, they will be able to register for their classes in April. However, if a student is not planning to come back for the Fall 2020 semester, I ask that you email one of the advisors your plan of action, even if you are not sure when you might return to Texas A&M.
We will continue to send information out over the listserv. I ask that everyone please be mindful of your TAMU email account. If any student uses TAMU Gmail platform and would like to know how to create a filter for emails from the advisors, I have attached instructions on how to set that up.
We thank everyone for their patience and understanding. As always, the advisors are here to help in any way we can. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to set up an appointment or email any one of us and we will be happy to assist you. Take care!
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Office Hours & Location
As a friendly reminder, the Department of Economics has moved. Our new building is located here in the old TTI Headquarters building. The ECON advising office is located in room 103 – which is on the first floor of the northside of the building. Lot 113 is by permit only – however students can park in the Fan Field gravel lot with any valid A&M permit.
Appointments: Monday-Friday from 10:00AM 11:30AM and then 1:00PM-4:000PM.
Walk-ins: Monday-Friday from 9:00AM-10:00AM, with the last walk-in typically taken back at 9:45PM. After our normal walk-in hours on Friday conclude at 10:00AM, we will then offer limited walk-in availability from 10:00AM-4:00PM.
To access the online appointment system, please click here and select LA-Liberal Arts Undergraduate Advising for the College and then select LA-ECON-LASB Advising Center as the location.
Contacting an Advisor
If you have a question for an advisor, we ask that you only email one, and not all of the advisors with your question or concern. When you email an advisor, please include your Name and UIN. Please also allow 1-2 business days for a reply email from an advisor. If you have an urgent matter, we encourage you to meet with an advisor, as we typically receive a higher volume of emails at the start and end of a semester.
Force Inquiries
We cannot force students into a course outside of our Department. For such inquiries, please email an advisor in the appropriate Department (ex. A HIST advisor for a HIST course).
Most ECON/ECMT courses are full to their respective capacities. Therefore we are not taking force requests for ECON/ECMT courses except for a few exceptions:
- If you are a potential Spring 2020 graduating senior and are missing courses to help you clear for Spring graduation.
- If you are a student who does not have a full schedule for the Fall.
For such inquiries, please email or visit with one of the advisors ASAP. Please be aware that as advisors, we can never guarantee a student a perfect schedule nor can we guarantee that a student’s academic schedule will work perfectly with their work schedule. However, we are always willing to look into any and all options to ensure a student remains on their current time to degree.
Degree Evaluation System
All students are strongly encouraged to use the degree evaluation system (this is different from the Degree Planner system) via the MyRecord tab in the Howdy website. This system will show a student what they have completed, how currently enrolled courses apply to their degree plan and what they are missing on every part of their degree plan. If you notice anything out of the ordinary, you are strongly encouraged to email an advisor (ex. An ENGL literature course not applying towards the literature requirement of your degree evaluation). Please remember, the degree planner system is a planning tool. However, the degree evaluation system is what is primarily used to verify a student’s current standing/progress towards graduation.
For our new students, here are some instructions on how to access your degree evaluation:
- Click on the MyRecord tab in the Howdy website
- Click “View Degree Evaluation” link
- Click on “Generate New Evaluation”
- After you confirm your program code (ex. BS-ECON), and verify the semester term as “Fall 2019”, click “Generate Request”
- Select “Detail Requirements” and then click “Submit”
Transcripts
If you have taken credit hours through another institution and have yet to have an official transcript sent to Texas A&M, please do so at your earliest convenience. If the institution in question does not send official transcripts electronically, the TAMU mailing address is:
Office of Admissions
Texas A&M University
P. O. Box 30014
College Station, TX 77842-3014
If the transcript is for a student who is on track to graduate in May, please have your transcript sent to:
Degree Audit
Texas A&M university
PO Box 30018
College Station, TX 77842-3018
We hope this information helps and we hope everyone has a very successful semester!