Fairhaven College — Local services in Bellingham

I have dozens and dozens of subjects that I am intensely interested in. The idea of having to choose one path was daunting to me when I came to fairhaven college. I told my advisor I wanted to work with nature, not people - he told me it wasn’t possible, and provided no further advising, despite me visiting him often and expressing concern and confusion. I told him I didn’t know what classes to take and he said “well that’s easy. Find what classes you like and register for them.” I knew this was wrong but I was facing social conflict if I continued to try holding him accountable. I reluctantly took his advice, ended up with a random hodgepodge of classes that didn’t make any sense and was forced to be in college for two extra quarters trying to salvage what I could to form a coherent degree. The quarter where I attempted to account for all of my credits was when I realized it was THAT QUARTER that I could have graduated. It was so bad that I finally went over my advisors head, went to the Advising Coordinator crying and refused to leave until I got answers. I never got those answers. She put everything back on me. I was never given any career counseling - personality assessments, interests inventory, skills inventory, motivation assessments - these people claimed to be career advisors yet never administered the tools that have been around for a hundred years to help me determine the right path for me. They let me flounder, watched me walk into pointless debt, wasting my time, made me feel bad for being an introvert, I can go on. It wasn’t until a few years after graduation that I saw a REAL career counselor and was finally administered the tools that saved my future. I didn’t even need a bachelors degree to begin with. I didn’t have to go thru all the bs and debt. Ironically, I saw a career counselor who also worked at western previously. So this help was available to me at main campus but I was never referred by Fairhaven. I was dismissed, not taken seriously, the Fairhaven advisors are not real career coaches, they made me feel alone and ashamed for who I am, they made me believe that their sad excuse for advising was all that was available to me and if I continued to hold them accountable then I would face conflict. They and everyone else these days act like they value inclusivity until it comes to neurodivergent people like myself. I now see that I was deliberately kept in the dark about the tools that are available to help people like me. I have applied for a Borrower’s Defense for my student loans citing all of this. I have so many more stories and details about my terrible experience at this college that...

April in the main office was very, very kind to return my rambling voicemail and spend a lot of time to help with someone who isn’t even one of the students at Fairhaven. She provided many resource links and good advice for my daughter, who is looking to pick up some prerequisites for applying to grad school as she finishes her BA elsewhere. I wish we had known more about this interdisciplinary program when my daughter was looking at undergrad schools. As someone with a bio degree from a liberal arts college, I truly appreciate the breadth of curriculum plans this college offers. Worth a look if your student doesn’t exactly fit into other...

Very Wide choices of classes, allowing to attend WWU and Fairhaven Classes! Excellent professors skilled in their subjects and communicating with the students!...