Orientation Advising

NOTE: this page is for UMBC graduate students, faculty, and staff interested in supporting Orientation Advising. If you are an incoming freshman or transfer student looking for information about New Student Orientation, including scheduling your orientation advising appointment, please click here instead.

When new students enter UMBC, they have an in-person Orientation experience on campus. In the following days, they are required to attend a virtual Orientation Advising session online. During their Orientation Advising, students and advisors work together to examine the student’s course history and background; discuss their major, minor, or academic interests; explore courses that will be needed in order to make progress towards graduation; and then actually register for a schedule based on those courses – so when a student leaves their session, they are 100% ready to step into class on the first day of the semester.

Our office works closely with the Office for Undergraduate Admissions and Orientation to provide academic advising for these sessions. To that end, we recruit faculty, staff, and graduate students from all segments of campus to assist us as part-time Orientation Advisors each Summer and Winter.

What is Orientation Advising?

We will offer Orientation Advising several days per week during most of the months of June, July, and August in the Summer; and on several scattered days during December and January in the Winter. Upon hire, we provide Orientation Advisors with a signup sheet on which they can indicate which dates they are free to advise and which dates they are not. Applicants can sign up for any number of dates, committing to be present from 11:15am to 4:30pm on each day signed up for. While we cannot guarantee work on any given day, we strive to provide at least 24 hours’ notice if an advisor is NOT needed due to too many advisors or not enough students.

On any given day, we expect to work with approximately 60-80 advisors and 150-200 students. Due to the size and intensity of this program, OAPA staff are present virtually every single day to provide support as needed. We use WebEx Meetings to conduct Orientation Advising, but also WebEx Teams as a discussion platform to ensure that any advisor can reach out at any time and receive a response in real time, or even have one of the professional advising staff join their session if helpful.

Our goal is to always provide all the support Advisors need so that they can provide the support our incoming students need.

  • 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, as Orientation normally happens during already-compensated business hours. Instead, we request that you be excused from other duties to make time for advising, and would be pleased to speak with any supervisors or managers to discuss these logistics. We strive to make this an excellent proposition for both you and your department (see Benefits to Advisors, below).
  • A Bachelor’s Degree is required to serve as an Orientation Advisor.
  • All Orientation Advisors must be affiliated with UMBC as a graduate student, faculty or adjunct faculty member, or staff member for the duration of the Orientation Advising period.
  • Newly-hired Orientation Advisors must attend an all-day training session online, on the day specified on the Orientation Advisor Application.
  • The entirety of this role is executed remotely; at no time is an advisor’s physical presence required on campus.

Besides compensation, Orientation Advising offers significant opportunities for members of the UMBC community:

  • 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.
  • Part-time faculty – to gain advising experience, highly sought-after in faculty openings, as well as to interact with students outside of the classroom. Advising experience can deeply augment teaching effectiveness by exposing instructors to a more holistic view of the student 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.
  • 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. While staff cannot receive separate compensation for Orientation Advising, this is an opportunity for FREE additional training and hands-on experience that can both augment your own professional portfolio and impart significant benefits to your department.

Orientation Advisors are eligible to earn a microcredential through Badges @UMBC!

Please visit our application page for instructions on completing and submitting your application.