Bakersfield College’s counseling office has stopped accepting formal appointments for the last two weeks of the school year, forcing students to wait until after the early registration periods for BC has ended.

Kathy Rosellini, a BC counselor, confirmed that the counseling offices have stopped accepting appointments during the last month of school due to registration for summer and fall classes. This practice traditionally happens every school year because of the volume of students wanting to see counselors.

“It’s historically like this,” said Rosellini. “If students are having a hard time seeing a counselor during a walk-in, plan ahead. I recommend setting up an appointment weeks in advance if you want to see a counselor.”

The problem, Rosellini says, stems from a lack of staffing in the counseling office. On average, the counseling office sees 450 students on a regular day, and with only 10 counselors on staff, that averages to about 45 students a day.

In California, community colleges on average have a ratio of 1 to 700 when it comes to counselors and students; however, BC has a whopping 1 to 1,100 ratio that in Rossellini’s words “is an extreme detriment to how we go about our jobs.”

The school, as of the Fall 2016 school year, has no plans to add any new counselors.

Instead, Rosellini believes students should have better time management and take advantage of the other tools the school offers.

“Communicate with us so we can help you, come in early September or at least before you have a problem,” said Rosellini. “We have so many tools at your disposals that do a lot of what we do here. Basically, it comes down to your time management skills as a student.”

The counseling department has had similar problems dealing with the influx of students who need counsel near the end of semesters in the past. The department added two counselors last year, but Rosellini said they really needed seven more to make a better ratio with students.

However, a year later the same problems are resurfacing and a majority of students are not too happy about it.

Masai Ujime, a fourth-year sophomore at BC studying kinesiology, said, “As of April 9, I still haven’t seen anyone and it’s not like my problem is too hard. I just want to change majors, but no one seems to have the time to help me.”

Similar students have echoed similar sentiments with 11 of the 15 students surveyed all generally saying the same thing: Why can’t they seem to get any help?

Some students are even claiming to have spent hours waiting in the offices just to be told that no one can see them that day, just to be told the same thing again when they return.

“I was in there for what felt like 10 years,” said Erin Johnston, a BC nursing major. “It feels like they are more worried about their lunch breaks than us.”

Jason Eeaves, a BC engineering major, and Ernesto Campos, a BC child psychology major, had similar complaints.

Eeaves believes that counselors don’t focus enough on the whole semester, saying, like students, their focus wanes as the semester goes on.

“It’s wrong to say they don’t care entirely, because they do. It’s just they care more about the paycheck over the student,” he said.

Considering the sheer volume of students who come into the counseling office in a day and the amount of counselors, that’s just not enough work being done, according to Campos.

“We pay for classes just like regular college students, but we are treated like a bunch of high school dropouts. They just need to get better at their jobs in my opinion,” said Campos.

When told that students do not feel “cared for” by counselors, Rosellini urged BC students to understand that it’s all a process.

“We care about each and every one of you here at BC,” she said. “We don’t want students to get the wrong messages when they leave our offices. Just communicate better so we can work on this together.”