Orientation Advising Info Session
Faculty, Grad Students, Staff - Help New Students, Get Paid!
Monday, March 23, 2026 · 12 - 1 PM
Virtual
The Office for Academic & Pre-Professional Advising has openings available for Summer Orientation Advisors! Advisors meet with incoming students VIRTUALLY during the months of June through August in one-on-one sessions to plan out and register for classes. No previous experience is required, and we will provide all training necessary!
Besides compensation, this is a rare chance for:
- Graduate students – to gain professional and interpersonal experience. Depending on your field, your time as a student may not open you up to many client-facing interactions, and this is a pathway to gaining that experience. If you are considering a career in academia, meanwhile, advising experience is highly sought-after in faculty openings.
- Part-time faculty – to gain advising experience, highly sought-after in faculty openings, as well as to interact with students outside of the classroom. As an adjunct faculty member myself, I can absolutely say that my teaching effectiveness has been augmented by my advising experience.
- Full-time faculty and staff – to begin to engage with your department's incoming students at the earliest possible juncture: to give them the best possible head start in their studies (and to make your own future advising appointments easier!).
- Staff – to engage in professional development in ways that may not be otherwise available, and then bring those skills back to your home department. Orientation advising requires and trains diverse skillsets, such as one-on-one academic advising and counseling, university-wide policies and protocols, inter-office collaboration, and much more!
Graduate
students, full-time faculty, and part-time faculty are eligible to be
compensated at the rate of $100 per afternoon session and $50 per evening session; full-time faculty
are compensated through a budget transfer to their departments. Staff
are not eligible for additional compensation -- see below for more information.
Participants are eligible to earn the Orientation Advisor
microcredential! More information on microcredentials and Digital
Badging can be found here: https://badges.umbc.edu/
Staff are especially encouraged to apply.
As
Orientation normally happens during business hours, we cannot compensate
you
separately for Orientation Advising activities, but request that you be
excused
from other duties to make time for advising. I would be pleased to speak
with your supervisor to discuss these logistics. Even participating for
just two or
three days over the Summer is a help to us, requires only a few hours of
your
time in total and can be a big benefit to your department. It can also
be of great benefit to you personally -- consider the time commitment
comparable to that of attending a conference, except that you may also
earn a formal microcredential for your participation!
We
are offering informational sessions for anyone interested or who
even just MIGHT be interested in finding out about this exciting
opportunity to expand their skillsets, make meaningful connections,
serve their departments, and get paid!