Advice

If I were hired by Baruch College to improve the college, I would suggest utilizing new media to fortify student and administration communication. For example, I am a student that has been victimized by predated methods of communicating with particular departments within Baruch. For years, email has been thought to be not only the most convenient, but the most professional way of communicating sensitive and personal advisement. Social media has always been viewed as an informality, a mere recreational use of communicating. However, in today's ever changing environment, that predated thinking may cause bottlenecks, and inefficiencies. There is a real reason as to why big companies recruit through new media methods such as Facebook, Instagram, and twitter. These new media platforms are the quickest and easiest way to communicate with people. The college can implement the same methods to communicate and engage with students. For example, why not have a twitter account for every operational department in the school? Admission, bursar, financial aid, advisement, and E-permit can all use new media to better engage with students. For example, my experiences with the advisement department of Baruch has been bittersweet. I am someone who figured out most of my course work in Baruch with little help from advisement. However, there were times where I needed answers to questions that were not so general, however did not require an appointment and sit-down advisement. Advisement cannot be given through the phone, as per policy. So many times, I made appointments for advisement, just to have a single, personal question answered. This was highly inefficient, because it not only wasted my time, but also time from another student that probably needed an advisement session more than me. However, if advisement was on twitter, with multiple personnel using the account, being on standby to answer direct messages from students, it can alleviate the inefficiencies and the bottle neck of the advisement center. All other departments can utilize the same strategy and methods to engage students. Instead of emailing mass messages, the departments can tweet, post, or send massive direct messages to the students.