Sometimes students experience academic difficulties not because they do not understand the specific course material, but rather due to other factors such as excessive anxiety, poorly developed study skills, or unrealistic expectations about how much they can handle. Academic counseling can help students figure out what may be impeding their academic progress, and assist them in taking steps to address the problem(s). NDSU Counseling Center offers both individual academic counseling, and one-credit Study Skills Classes.

The Counseling Center is located at 212 Ceres Hall. Hours are M/W/F 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and T/Th 8:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. during the school year, and M-F 7:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. during summer and school breaks.

Unless you are in crisis, we suggest that you schedule an appointment in advance. To make an appointment, you may call the Counseling Center at 231-7671 and specify that you wish to make an appointment for personal counseling.

If you have not been here before, you will be scheduled for an Initial Consultation. During this initial session, the consulting counselor will listen to your concerns, obtain information about you, assess your needs, and discuss available resources. Ongoing counseling with a member of the counseling staff and/ or other referral possibilities may be arranged.

If you have been here before and are already working regularly with a particular counselor, the front desk staff will schedule an appointment for you with your counselor. If it has been some time since you were last seen, or the counselor you worked with before is no longer available, you may need to be scheduled for a Return Consultation.

The Counseling Center has a staff member designated to handle emergencies and crises at 10:00 AM each morning and 2:00 PM each afternoon. It is helpful to call before coming to the Counseling Center in order to determine counselor availability.

Realizing that emergencies are not predictable, we will respond to emergencies which cannot fit into our posted emergency hours. When calling, be sure to tell the receptionist that you have an emergency and need to be seen at the earliest possible time.

NOTE: If you are having a medical emergency, please call 911 for help.

If you are an NDSU student in crisis after hours or over the weekend, please call our main number, 231-7671. During the academic year, your call will be taken by our answering service and assistance will be offered. For crises outside our office hours during summer and school breaks, please call the 24-hour FirstLink hotline at 235-7335.

We discourage people from contacting us via e-mail regarding personal problems. The nature of e-mail is such that we cannot guarantee the confidentiality of your correspondence, nor do we find e-mail communications as useful as in-depth, face-to-face contact. Moreover, we cannot guarantee that we will read e-mail right away or respond in a timely fashion.