For masters students, the formal aspect of "academic advising" consists of meetings each semester with a faculty member in order to select courses to take. New, incoming graduate students see an advisor as part of their orientation, and thereafter advising usually occurs about a month before the end of each semester, during the "preregistration" period for the following semester.
At present, we do not assign specific advisors to individual students; each student is free to seek advice from whichever faculty member they are most comfortable approaching, and you can switch advisors whenever you wish, although you may find it helpful to get consistent advice on your program by sticking with a single advisor.
Consulting an advisor as part of selecting your courses can help create a mutually reinforcing and coherent degree program, and may also be important to avoid some possible pitfalls (including courses that cannot be accepted towards an MS EE degree, such as the few listed on the FAQ on exclusions). Your advisor signs a form with your course selections, which you hand in to the EE department office to confirm that you have seen an advisor, and to give the department a record of what was decided. However, you also have to register for the classes with the University Registrar via the main Columbia web site - the department cannot do this for you.
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