With an early graduation planned in December 2023, McKenna Busick knows the ins and outs of the kinesiology major. She joined the advising team to get to know her peers and understand the college more, and get her foot in the door to strengthening those relationships. She’s a part of the pre-clinical team, advising for the upper and lower divisions of radiologic sciences, respiratory care, and pre-nursing.
The best part of the job for Busick is seeing how each student is different, and how even within the same major there’s so much variety in people’s backgrounds and motivations in the field. She enjoys learning about everyone, and getting to know them over the course of their studies.
“Just being able to see how each student is different in their own way, and there’s no ‘cookie cutter’ way around doing things,” Busick said.
Busick feels that helping students make important connections and helping them prepare for graduate schools or go into the workforce after graduation is the most important part of advising, so she would love to see advising used more past the first-year required appointment. Seeing an advisor can help students start to network with people outside of Boise State and learn more about what students need in order to be eligible for licensure exams to begin their careers, and to just learn more about their field in general.
Being a student herself helps Busick relate to students more, and she believes that it makes it easier for students to be open and feel comfortable during appointments. She’s seen a peer advisor herself, and she felt it made her feel much more supported.
“Being able to talk to a peer advisor and just see a more personal look on the schedules really helped me,” Busick said. “Having someone who’s currently doing or has it very recently provides such a different outlook.”
With the donations from Bronco Giving Day, Busick hopes to get more peer advisors hired to have a bigger team for students, and to start more programs to involve students with their majors. Not every pathway has involvement programs, and being able to provide students with networking opportunities for jobs and pre-professional schools is something that Busick enjoys as an advisor.