Advisement Fail.

Lately, I've been attempting to get my life planned out for the next few years- from finishing the undergraduate program I'm in, graduating, getting a job, getting certified to teach and then starting a graduate program. This wasn't the original plan- the original plan was to double major in Theatre and Art Education- everything was cleared by my adviser up until the point last Friday when I received an email from the Dean's Adviser in the College of Arts and Sciences telling me that the only way I could do Art Education would be to apply for a Dual Degree. And I may graduate in 9 more semesters. Uhm, what? Where was this information when I was discussing this with my adviser in the Theatre department? Was it unknown? Was it hiding under a stack of papers? No- the adviser in my department is simply a horrible adviser. I have heard more complaints from other students in the department than compliments. There is either a lack of caring or a lack of knowledge going around, as multiple students are getting to their senior year without taking the classes they need because they have no knowledge that these classes are necessary to graduate. While I am aware that it is mainly our responsibility to decide which classes to take, it is helpful to be aware of which classes will actually count towards our degree. In this same instance, I came to the knowledge today that we (being theatre majors) need a movement class to graduate. Where was this knowledge? I've looked- it's nowhere online. It was never mentioned once by the adviser. Was it just up to me to know that a movement class was needed? I don't feel like this is something that I should have just known off the top of my head- maybe if advisement was worth anything, everyone in the department wouldn't be scrambling to take random classes in our last semesters in order to graduate.