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<p>You’re absolutely right, and yet it would stagger you to know how many students don’t look things up, and apparently get caught up in scheduling and requirement snafus. Which may have been, as you noted, entirely preventable.</p>
<p>But to some extent, I think it bears mention that online guides can’t take the place of advising. They’ll tell you the rules but not how to sanely negotiate them. Advising is where they can tell you that this course will substitute for that one if you submit the right paperwork, or that they don’t recommend taking these two courses the same term, this course tends to fill up so take it now… Students need this kind of advising, but not all of them get it.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m just overly sympathetic because I ended up forking over an extra $4600 in graduate tuition merely because I wrote a date down wrong. Yeah, it was online; findable in less than two minutes, even.</p>