EP04 Meet the Team - Hannah Huff

 

Hannah Huff joins us for this episode.  If you are going to be a student in the Vet Tech program you will most assuredly be talking to Hannah or another Academic Advisor here at Appalachian State. Hannah shares the ways in which she supports her students as well as her advice for navigating this fully online program. 

 

Transcript:

 

Dave Blanks:

This is Vet Tech Talk, a podcast about Appalachian State University's online four-year Bachelor of Science in Veterinary Technology degree program.

Hello there. I'm Dave Blanks, and I work here at App State in University Communications. On this episode, we're joined by Hannah Huff. Hannah has been affiliated with Appalachian State for the past seven years as a student, a graduate assistant, and now an academic advisor as well. She graduated in 2019 with her Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Human Services, and then returned to App in 2020 to pursue graduate school. She graduated in 2022 with her Master of Arts in Student Affairs Administration, and she has a background in academic advising from her graduate assistantship in the Advising and Orientation Center, as well as experience serving college students using theory-to-practice frameworks, which we get into in the conversation today.

In this role currently, Hannah is very excited to expand her advising skill set to learn about the veterinary profession and to support students as they navigate this fully online program. Now here is my conversation with Hannah. Hey Hannah. How's it going?

Hannah Huff:

Hi, good. How are you?

Dave Blanks:

I'm great. Thank you for coming down today. We appreciate you being here. Let's start out with what's your job at Appalachian State? What do you do here? You're an academic advisor, but specifically for the Vet Tech program, correct?

Hannah Huff:

Right. So I am an academic advisor for the Vet Tech program, which is in the College of Arts and Sciences. So, my position is actually pretty unique in that I am split between the College of Arts and Sciences and what's called the Cash Office, and then the Vet Tech team. So, I have my own caseload of Vet tech students, but I also get to learn all of the roles that go into the College of Arts and Science advising and work with second degree students, work with readmission students and learn all the processes and procedures there as well, so I get a good, well-rounded set of skills with this.

Dave Blanks:

Gotcha. So with Tech, you're advising 70 students. That seems to me like a lot of people to be advising, but I understand it's kind of a small caseload for you.

Hannah Huff:

Yeah, it's generally pretty small. In my previous role as a graduate assistant, I had at one time about a hundred, maybe a little bit more than that, but 70 right now, and that'll probably increase over the coming semesters when we have more students join the program and more students actually officially declare their major.

Dave Blanks:

Gotcha.

Hannah Huff:

Right now I'm coasting at 70, but we'll get a little bit more over time. All right.

Dave Blanks:

Good plan. So I'm a student, or I want to be a student in the Vet Tech program. How would I encounter you?

Hannah Huff:

Yeah, so generally, I will be the one who reaches out to students in terms of making appointments. I do have students who reach out to me with general questions that they have, either about their classes or about things at App State and how things kind of work here at the school because-

Dave Blanks:

These are students already enrolled?

Hannah Huff:

Already enrolled. Yes. And there were students who were interested in the program who weren't yet enrolled, who were still contacting me, asking me questions. So, I would be able to point them in the right direction or give them whatever answer I could to help them. Obviously, we want them to join the program. We're very excited about it. And anything I can do to encourage them to apply or encourage them to enroll in their classes, I'm going to help them do.

Dave Blanks:

And I see they probably found you through the website, which is vet tech.appstate.edu. But there you are right there with your two doggos. Okay, so they would end up coming to you and did you say that every student is required actually?

Hannah Huff:

Yes. So every student will be required to meet with me for advising to get their PIN number for registration for the next semester. So, we will talk through classes for the next semester. I also have made planners for the student, so I've kind of mapped out a rough idea of their progression through the degree so that they have a rough idea of what classes to take in certain semesters and how long it will take them to graduate based on any transfer credit that they have, kind of what they're starting