Navigating the Academic Maze

Abstract

Academic advising is an integral component of higher education that impacts student achievement, university retention, and graduation rates. Given the current competitive arena in Thai higher education, advising plays an increasingly critical role in students’ and universities’ success. However, advising is a complex process, and what actually occurs, with whom, when, and where is complicated. Furthermore, little is known of the current state of advising in Thai higher education as in the extant literature there are as yet no articles in English on the subject. The present article presents an auto-ethnographic reflection of the author’s lived experience in conducting advising at a university in Thailand between 2020 and 2022. The purposes of this article were to shed light on the current state of advising in Thai higher education by sharing the author’s lived experience, and to connect this experience to broader issues in advising at Thai universities. Suggestions are given to further the professionalization and quality of advising in Thai higher education, including a call for a paradigmatic shift from a traditional, prescriptive approach to a developmental, holistic one. Given the lack of English literature on advising in Thailand, this paper provides needed insights into the subject.