UBC Science Advising

They don't give a S*** about you.

SO SLOW

Everyone was rude. Try to avoid as much as possible

Science advising is rude, unsympathetic and slow. It gives me more stress to approach the advising rather than resolving a stressful situation with them. Can't UBC spend some money to hire decent advisors?

Hi, my names Melissa and I just had a call with one of the science advisors Wendy Brett. She was extremely rude, disrespectful, and condescending when asking her simple and honest questions. She kept repeating stuff like, “well like I said last time”, “I mentioned that last time”, but that was all good I tried to stick out her condescending tone. What really pushed me off the edge is that when I was asking her if I could take classes at ubc to try to graduate while I enter another program at BCIT she said I couldn’t and that only people with special situations could. So I asked her for an email so I could make sure, just as she advised me (in a prior meeting) to contact bcit about deferring my acceptance just to make sure even though I told her they didn’t do that. She started yelling at me telling me she was insulted I didn’t believe her and that I wasn’t listening to her and that’s when I lost my cool and stuck up for myself. I told her she was being rude from the start by talking to me in a condescending tone and now by making assumptions about me just from a simple question with good intentions to just be sure, really pushed me off the edge. She continued to yell at me repeating my name like 5 times and demanded me to stop interrupting the nonsense she was spewing. How old are you? I’m extremely upset by this situation, and to make it worst, I tried to talk to her and tell her how I felt and she laughed. She laughed. Who laughs at a student just trying to get help from an advisor when they are trying to be honest and tell you how they feel. She didn’t even apologize, didn’t even try to make it work, still continued to be rude, and at the end said, “well is this it? Are we done here?” And at that point I was fuming, said yes, and hung up. I’m super disappointed with the people hired at UBC. I really think they need to do a better job. Especially with jobs that require you to aid other people, to help students that need help, and you did everything but that. Students that become vulnerable with you and tell them their situation so they could get help from you and you abused that.

After one of my meetings with Science Advising, I felt utterly discouraged and angry. I thought that maybe I had said something wrong to the “advisor” who was “helping” me. This is why I was reassured when I saw someone else's review, sharing a similar experience involving the same advisor. After waiting for 2.5 hours on hold, I finally got connected. Throughout our conversation, she was speaking in a condescending, accusatory way, responding to my questions by saying that I should have done more research and finally answering the questions in an annoyed tone. I told her that I would like to pursue computer science and she kept telling me that I was being “short sighted” to not focus on another major, despite not knowing my marks or capabilities. Eventually she told me straight up that I “won’t graduate from UBC”. When I told her that I would like to pursue a degree in a field I am interested in she simply said “I don’t want to argue this anymore”, as if I was the one creating conflict. At the end of the arduous meeting, she had the nerve to tell me that “things aren’t as discouraging as they seem”. You are the reason people are being discouraged! I should mention that I have had meetings with different advisors from Science Advising who were all very professional and helpful. I understand that these advisors have a difficult job, but why has every other one been great? It seems like this one lady is just a bad apple. The sad thing is that many student’s first real contact with UBC is through advisors and to have your first impression being a lady screaming at you or telling you that you are not going to graduate, makes students feel unwelcome at UBC, I certainly did.

The zoom advising sessions are extremely inefficient and slow, the line opens and within 5 minutes it is filled to capacity with a 4 hour wait time. Please allocate more manpower and prolong the Zoom hours for the drop in session at least during the months of heavy traffic.