In search for information about advisers and their role in our lives as students, I bumped into what seemed like a great offering. On the ISU Web site there is a page called “You and Your Advisor.”

This page reminds us of the assumptions we come across when dealing with one of the most central figures during our academic lives – our advisers. They are the ones who will determine to which level of frustration we’ll climb before we either graduate or give up on our dreams of becoming good citizens and great professionals.

The first statement says your adviser will work with you to ensure that you are making satisfactory progress toward your career goals. The questionable term here could be satisfactory, as it may seem that this word has different meanings for adviser and advisee. I have heard of many cases in which a student ends up frustrated from dealing with a person who may be overloaded with students and cases, but whose role remains vital for each student who depends on him or her to design his or her college path.

As the page guides the student to seek advice from the adviser as he or she would seek assistance from a legal or financial adviser, the stories I’ve heard about advisers determining the academic paths of many students at Iowa State become more and more inexplicable. Because of the central role advisers play in our college life, some of them seem overcome by the sense of power. Those are the ones who become not advisers, but dictators of our class schedule.

The frustration I’ve heard of from many students in Iowa State may seem meaningless. But case by case you may conclude that there is an implied acceptance of many situations that shouldn’t be happening in the first place.

The Web site in question, for example, announces that your adviser can only advise you with respect to completion of the requirements for a degree; he or she cannot and will not make decisions for you. In some way it seems they can, or at least, there is a lack of a complete guide to what can a student can expect from this service and where he/she can draw the line.

Advisers undoubtedly help shape students sense of control of their future. They are the ones who may become the student’s best allies in completing his or her degree as timely and effectively as possible. University advisers should be aware of all these responsibilities.

They should understand that their role should be one of facilitators, not bump creators. The university, too, should take a close look at its policies in reminding advisors of their duties and a clear procedure should be established for students to channel their complaints about the service they receive from their advisers.

Although, as the Mechanical Engineering Advising Web site says, your adviser can provide you with an objective perspective and help you find ways to resolve many issues, he or she can also become the major pain you’ll have to bear during your stay at Iowa State.

The student body may not understand its responsibility in stirring the system’s monotonous flow and asking the administration to comply with its offering of a healthy and satisfactory relationship between advisers and advisees.

Advisers, on their part, should internalize the opportunity they’ve been given to serve future professionals. This group of service professionals possesses an extremely valuable chance to collaborate in the careers of numerous individuals.

They have the power to guide their university life in more than one way – with a demonstration of human quality, by exercising a devotion to service as an honor, by showing the will to go a little further when necessary to help their students succeed. Advisers have a chance for giving a lesson that is not provided in classrooms.

Their relationship to students should be put into the right perspective. They are professionals with whom we’ll interact closely for some time. Through their jobs, advisers can help give students an idea of how to achieve success in the working world, but better yet, enjoy themselves while they’re at it.

Zayira Jordan is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Hato Rey, Puerto Rico.