As incoming first-year students meet with academic advisors over the summer to plan their fall semester schedules, many are beginning to search for supplemental advice online. Reddit — a social media platform divided into niche subcommunities, including one dedicated to the University of Michigan — has become a popular source of guidance. On r/uofm, students often post their prospective schedules with the intention of receiving feedback from current students who are studying the same major.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Engineering rising freshman Alex Tiska said she used Reddit in advance of her advising appointment to feel more prepared.
“I wanted to feel confident in what I was going to talk to the advisor about as an incoming student,” Tiska said. “I haven’t had much experience talking to an academic advisor, so I just want to be as informed as I could be before talking to someone.”
Rackham student Tyler Fioritto told The Daily Reddit has a lot of information from past years to help students determine their schedules.
“You have this infinite access to information, because not only do you have this semester, but you have two years ago, you have five years ago, you have 10 years ago of people posting on the Reddit about schedules and how courses have changed, not just schedules, but somebody will say ‘Hey, who’s this professor? Is he good?’” Fioritto said. “And you can find discussions from literally five years ago about if they’re a good professor. And you have basically an infinite amount of information.”
In an interview with The Daily, Mike Stowe, LSA coordinator for student communication and engagement, said he has a strategy for students who engage in academic advising with prospective course schedules influenced by Reddit.
“If somebody comes to me with a schedule that they got influenced based on Reddit or based on any conversation with peers, as those happen in many different contexts, I think the first thing that I want to do is get a sense as to why they think that advice is accurate, why they think it is going to support their goals,” Stowe said. “And if they have strong context for why that is, then that helps me ensure that I’m further supporting their goals. If, on the other hand, the response is ‘Somebody on Reddit told me that it was the right schedule,’ that doesn’t automatically make it wrong.”
Mark Collyer, director of the Engineering Advising Center, said in an interview with The Daily advisors have unique and extensive experience with University degree requirements that Reddit users may not.
“As their advisor, we know the way that the degree was designed, and we know that there are certain courses that need to happen in a certain order, (and) in a certain way, and that context is usually not included when someone is just going to Reddit saying, ‘I’m thinking about taking class X for the fall. Is this a good idea for someone in their first term?’” Collyer said. “The person giving advice on Reddit may not know that a given class, in fact, is a very reasonable course for a first-year engineer to take even if the person giving advice may have concerns about that particular class.”
In an interview with The Daily, art lecturer William Burgard said a student’s course load can impact their success in his class.
“We have homework almost every day, and sometimes as the semester goes on, (students) prioritize and spend more time on other classes,” Burgard said. “And I’m always surprised sometimes when they are honest about it and they say, ‘I didn’t really have time to work on this, so I just threw it together.’”
Burgard said a single student’s experience with a class posted on platforms like Reddit may not offer the most objective perspective.
“I think they benefit from that,” Burgard said. “I think it’s useful, but it’s kind of like hotel ratings, sometimes they’re slanted by some people (who) care about one thing and not about another. I think every bit of information is helpful, but if you’re getting descriptions from students on Reddit, it can be kind of biased, depending on the people that post things there.”
Fioritto said he was inspired by Reddit to take courses such as ASTRO 106, which he ended up enjoying.
“I would say some of the minicourses people are suggesting are awesome,” Fioritto said. “People often discount that because they think it’s a joke or the minicourse is just super easy. (They) take it for (a) free A (grade) and to some extent that’s true, but some of the astronomy classes that people talk about, more and more people seem to be taking them. Like Astronomy 106 I saw on Reddit originally; I eventually took it my sophomore year, and honestly, so much fun.”
Stowe encouraged students to do independent research while taking advantage of external platforms like Rate my Professors and University resources like Atlas.
“I think the big thing (is) when students want to do their own research, which I absolutely encourage them to do, there are lots of external platforms for that, like Reddit or Rate My Professors, which is very popular,” Stowe said. “But internally, we also have the Atlas course profile, and for me, that is the best kind of independent resource for students who want to look at their courses and see what the course load of the schedule is going to be like.”
Daily Staff Reporter Kayla Lugo can be reached at klugo@umich.edu.
