Careers & Advising

If I was given one word to describe Advising and Career classes, I'd pick the word "ridiculous."

One period every week was dedicated to each Careers, and Advising. Mys. Faysan handled Advising, while the regional director, Mr. Hollandos, handled Careers. Sometimes, a sweet old man replaced Mr. Hollandos, though his name eludes me right now.

Advising was the most nerve-racking of all these sessions. Not entirely dissimilar to military-style inspections, Mrs. Faysan would walk between isles like the footsteps of doom, as the group leader checked every student's diary for omissions.

Our school had an absolutely brilliant diary that they designed in-house. I think it's one of the few diamonds-in-a-dung-heap type innovations that our school came up with, perhaps second only to their insistence not to have a ranking system, which wasn't really an innovation as much as it was a mindset. It is difficult to imagine that the administration had any capacity at creativity given their attitudes, but if they did design the diaries themselves, I'm impressed.

The diary was a detailed table labeled with single letters to mark subject name, material covered in class, homework assigned and their due date. It was a rather arduous task to fill it out to its completion all the time, so Mrs. Faysan made sure we were always on our toes.

One due date out of place would land a poor soul a detention. One subject missed, one single material covered of an entry a week old, and it was to the gallows. I can't recall if I was ever caught, but I don't think I was. I would have remembered the trauma. Other students who fell victim to these ridiculous detentions would actually spend breaks or lunchtimes before their Advising lessons, copying details from one diary to another.

After the diary Witch-Hunt was over, Mrs. Faysan would usually proceed to lecture us directly off an actual Advising textbook. It would have passages of testimonials from her former lackeys or lists of what a good student should be, followed by thinking and discussion questions that we as a class would "discuss."

Overall, Advising was a complete waste of time.

Careers was more interesting, though. Mr. Hollandos, his enthusiasm literally pouring out of his eyes, would pace to and fro at the front of the class, telling us stories of some smart kid in Cornell or some valedictorian in Carnegie-Mellon. And he didn't insist on checking diaries, although sometimes he did.

His replacement, an old man with a goatee and a pot belly who very much resembles Bernard Hill's character Theoden in The Lord of the Rings film adaptation, would rarely put people on detention. I can still recall myself forgetting something, and my group leader pointing this out to him. He lifted my diary, and looked at the missing entry for a moment, contemplating. He then handed it back to me, told me to fill it out and walked away. It was quite a moment, because I knew I was in for it this time, but was saved!

So once again, overall opinion? A splendid waste of time, much less stressful than Advising, and extremely relaxing. No complaints here.