Built by Students, Inspired by an Advisor

 In recognition of Global Advising Week, this episode of Transfer Tea explores the evolving role of advising in an era shaped by learning mobility, transfer complexity, and student-centered innovation. Loida sits down with Sabih, co-founder of Stellic, to discuss how one student’s vision—deeply inspired by the mentorship of Carnegie Mellon advisor Mark Stehlik—grew into a platform focused on helping students navigate clearer academic pathways.

Together, they explore why advising has become essential infrastructure for student success, how technology can strengthen human connection rather than replace it, and what institutions must do to better support today’s increasingly mobile learners. From transfer pathways to degree planning and credit mobility, this conversation highlights why the future of higher education depends on systems that are both connected and deeply human.

Host:

Loida González, Ed.D.

Director, Recruitment & Enrollment Services
Texas A&M University–Central Texas

Guest:

Sabih Bin Wasi

Founder & CEO, Stellic

Transcript

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Hi, you're listening to Transferte, a podcast for the ACR community sponsored by ACR, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. I am your host, Loida, and this week, in recognition of Global Advising Week, we're talking about something that sits at the heart of student success but is often underestimated, advising. Advising is not simply course registration, it's interpretation, translation, coaching, relationship building, and often the difference between a student stopping out or moving forward. In today's higher education landscape, where students swirl between institutions, bring learning from multiple experiences, and navigate increasingly complex pathways, advising has become central to learning mobility. Joining me today is a team member from Stelli, a company founded by Carnegie Mellon students who saw firsthand how important clear pathways and connected advising systems really are. Named in honor of their advisor and mentor, this story is deeply rooted in the power of guidance, mentorship, and student-centered innovation. Today we'll explore the future of advising, the role technology can play in mobility and transfer success, and why human-centered systems matter now more than ever. So grab your tea because this conversation is about the maps that students need and the people who help them navigate. All right, Transferte listeners. Today, I have a really cool guest that I am so excited about. We're gonna do a whole lot of learning, I feel, um, already. And so before we get started into the conversation, I just want my friend Sabi to tell us a little bit more about himself. So, go on, Sabi. Thank you, Roja. Hey guys, I'm Sabi. I'm um I'm, I'm a recent grad. I don't know how, for how long I can say I'm a recent grad, but I'm a recent grad. Uh, I, uh, I'm also a founder of this, uh, platform called Stelle, uh, which we have been doing for the past, uh, 9 years now. Um, and have been working with Acro since then. I think Acro was my first conference, uh, that I went to. So, and then build my network and connections and friends within registrar, uh, community. So I'm so excited about it. That is really cool. You can say you're a recent grad, I don't know, for 5 years. I mean, who, whoever, who pays attention anyway? Uh, you, we could just walk around saying that you're a recent grad. So, um, one of the really interesting parts about Seeck. Um, that we're gonna talk about is the founding story. I was trying to do some research, Sabi, and I was like, how did this platform come to be because something is works as a catalyst, right? Uh, we all work in this space and trying to help students and trying to help institutions to help students. Uh, and so I think there's a really interesting story that is worth sharing about the, uh, founding of this, um, of this organization that you can share with us. Absolutely, yeah. So, it's, honestly, a lot of it is by accident, right? Like, so I was a, a first-generation international student, um, and had no idea what is a prerequisite. What does it mean by on-time graduation? Why would somebody not graduate on time? You have to declare a major. Like, what's a minor and a major? Like all of these like things that seem so fundamental to the higher ed, especially in the US, it was like foreign to me. So, here I am, like, you know, um, trying to figure out like, What these things mean. Um, and, and, and I just felt like the system really wasn't there to, uh, to support me. And I, I, I think to me, honestly, it was more about like, It's, it's, it's less of a planning solution and more of an anxiety reducing solution, right? Um, I'm meeting all these people who are in their senior or junior year, and they're talking about like how they missed a particular requirement and now they have to do summer or like those kind of things. So, I was like, OK, I can't do this. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm on visa. I, I really have to make sure I graduate on time. Uh, and so then I thought about building a planner. And I thought it will be a very simple exercise. I think if I remember correctly, I said like it will take me a month to build it, and here, here we are 9 years later. OK. Uh, it's so interesting because, uh, you think about planner, but look, we can't really build a good. Planner without a very solid degree audit, because if you don't have good data, then the planning will also be misleading. Um, so I shared this with my advisor, uh, and he said this would be even more helpful for him because he's advising thousands of people. Uh, and he doesn't know, and it's so interesting, by the way, because he said, like, people who pay attention to these things are the people who need less help than people who have no idea, right? And they don't even come to his office to think about that. Um, and so we thought, OK, let's, let's build, uh, this planner and audit. And, and yes, I mean, the platform is you would learn like. In a bit, like, it has, has grown into being a lot more than that. But at the heart of it is very much about, like, can we build confidence, informed, you know, behavior by students when navigating their pathways. Uh, and when they struggle, can we create advising support system around them so they have like humans to help them out, um, during those times. And it comes at such a great time because this week in higher education is where we celebrate Global Academic Advising Week. That's right. Uh, yes, and so academic advisors, they really, they do God's work, right? They do, they handle a lot. They have, there's a lot on their plate, um, they, uh, have to be able to be good feelers, right, to ensure that the student is feeling well, that the student has resources, but at the same time give them the academic guidance that they need. So your advisor's name was. Uh, Mark Stelle, Mark Stelle, and so what I mean, what, when you told him that that's what you were gonna name the company, what was his reaction? He was not happy. He was not happy. He, he thought it was too much. Um, we, yeah, so I thought like, what do we name it, so it's like very appropriate, and I thought like. Honestly, like, Mark has had so much deeper impact, you know, on, on me, outside of navigating degree requirements, by the way, like, you know, just like, what do I want out of, like, life, uh, and would spend, like, late nights with me and like, navigate all these, like, existential, like, foundational questions about me, about my aspirations. And I thought, what would be a really good way to give an homage to all the impact he has made. And by the way, I'm not alone. If you can, there's so many people who would say the same thing about Mark. And he said, you know, a great way would be to name the company after him. Um, and, and here we are. So when we told him, he was like, oh, no. So what we did was, his name is like, his name is spelled slightly differently. It's a Scottish name, S T E H L I K. Uh, and so we said, OK, we'll name it more like stellar than, than that. He said, OK, that's fine. Like he, he was OK with it. Uh, but, but I do think now that we have, I mean, he, he also didn't know like how, how good or screwed up this company is going to be. And so, but now he's proud. Now he's happy. Because it's successful in all the right ways. You mentioned something, Sabi, that I want to highlight because I had this experience yesterday. Um, so one thing that you might not know about me is that I started an international admissions. So I worked with a lot of students like you, uh, and, and the majority of the, my conversations were conversations about interpretation. What is, what is the academic system in the US look like for A graduate student. What, what, you know, uh, what does credit hours mean? What does full-time, being a full-time student mean, you know, the requirements for, um, visa and completing on time and, you know, um, what is an internship or how are internships ran in the United States. So all those questions. But yesterday, I had the opportunity to engage with a family that was out of state. And they're, they're domestic students, but they're out of state, and I realized that even the state to state terminology that we use in degree in degree paths is different and unfortunately, sometimes misinterpreted way too late. So in this case, the student, um, the parent was under the assumption that, um, Our like degree pathways in general, they sometimes say occupational um credits, and some people interpret that as vocational credits and some people interpret that as life credits and so life credits could be, um, you know, aviation, you know, and all these other, all these other things that you can do that we now call like That we can build a portfolio and call them competency-based education and all that good stuff, right? Uh, so lived experiences basically, but lived experiences are not vocational credit. And so there's, there's definitely a misunderstanding when, like you said, students try to self-advise or self-guide themselves, and they make their own interpretation of something because they don't have the tools that they need. To really understand what is required for their degree plan, and unfortunately, that's where we lose a lot, a lot of students in, especially in the transfer space. It, it is, it's such a, like, if you think about like students as, as customers, right, of higher ed, it's such a not customer-centric, you know, like for experience. I'll tell you, like, so the podcast is called Transferity. So I had On the last day, I think of my classes, like right before the exams began, I was just randomly chatting with someone and I found out that I think 3 of the courses I was taking in, this is my first year, uh, I already had transfer credits. Again, they were like, and I was like, what is a transfer credit? It's like, yeah, you, you don't have to take these classes. And I'm like, wait, I would have loved to have known that at the start of the sem, right? um, and maybe I would have taken 3 courses that would have been more meaningful, more useful, uh, because it, it, it was also clear in the classroom that I already know these concepts that I'm learning in the, in the, in the class. And thankfully, that was not my personal, uh, experience, but people who are on financial aid, the consequences are even more dire, right? Like, I mean, people finding out that the course that they were taking doesn't count towards their degree means that they have to pay for out of pocket for those kind of things. And, and. Honestly, if that was the case with me, I would have dropped out because I had no way to pay for classes that way, right? So, it's, yeah, I, I, I mean, the, it's very interesting because the experience is not very like student-centric, I think today, and, uh, students don't know these terminologies, but the consequences are not softer. They're quite serious. Um, and so, yeah, someone needs to do something about it. Yeah, and so, uh, you bring up a good point, um, just for the record, Sabi said it first, uh, higher ed is, it should be a customer experience, and I think that there's a lot from the, uh, sales world that we could learn about customer service and being more student-centric, not just saying we're student-centric, but actually being student-centric and making students feel that they are important, um, and so. What did your experiences at Carnegie Mellon reveal about how students navigate all of those challenges? I think like uh every school, and this was true at Carnegie Mellon as well, where people would have these recommended pathways and these like course sequences. I have yet to meet a single student who would follow that pathway. You know, it's just like, like a standard pathway doesn't work for anyone on campus and, and for different reasons, right? Like transfer is one of them, but it's also about like, what do I want to do in summers? Um, what aspirations do I have? Two computer science students would have a very different pathway if one wants to do a startup or one wants to be a researcher, right? Um, you could do, I mean, now we work with Community colleges, so we are learning even more diversity in around like how these, these pathways are, are built. So, I, I think like there is no such thing as a standard pathway. Uh, it's very dynamic. Uh, I also think higher ed is a place where a person discovers themselves. So they might, they want one major or one outcome, uh, you know, in their first year and Completely change their perspective in the 3rd year, and we should celebrate that. That's the idea of, uh, people are discovering themselves. Uh, so I think that probably the biggest thing I've learned is like, there's no such thing as like a straight or standard pathway, uh, somebody would follow, and it's more about like adapting and being dynamic to the background and aspirations and strengths of, uh, of every student. Well, and, and the traditional, the traditional student has changed, right? Like the transfer even isn't even the same anymore. It's not linear. It's not always just from community colleges right now we are talking about dual enrollment and returning adults and, uh, you know, military and all these other things. So that has definitely changed. Why is advising now, uh, Why is advising now critical infrastructure for learning mobility? Why is it so important? I mean, the, the, I, I also think the other thing that has happened is curriculum has gotten quite complex. You know, like requirements after requirements after requirements. Uh, part of it is some of these rules and policies exist by people who have long retired, right? Uh, but part of it is there is inherent complexity in balancing, uh, employer needs and what like the faculty would love to teach and what the accreditation would like to have. Um, and so you have all this like, Uh, spaghetti kind of like curriculum, so which is quite complex, right? And then you have students who are coming from such diverse background that you can't really have just one page and explain them what those things look like. I also think this is probably more true now than it has been. People are also questioning why? Why am I doing this, you know? And I think advising is a way to kind of give them that. Confidence, that assurance that this is worth it, right? I actually think there's a very real problem in higher ed where career officers are like very, very far from advising, you know, rooms. And so students are saying like if an advisor's job is only to tell you how do you graduate. On time, that's not sufficient. I think it's more about like, how do I shape my purpose, uh, when I'm in college, right? And all of that is like where advisors sit at the cross section. Like, you know, yes, sometimes you can get lucky and find a faculty member who would do that for you, but that's not very systematic. It's just one person would, would think about that. So I do think Advising plays a very important role. I also think advising, when does advising start is also important. Uh, there was this concept of like, OK, in the first year, you can do them some hand baby advising, uh, but the real advising comes later. And I actually disagree with that. Uh, uh, my perspective is advising, ideally should start even before you join the college. You know, like you understand like which pathway would be right, what major would be right? Is this institution right for you or not, right? And so, I think advising plays a quite a core role from end to end journey of a student and not just giving them transactional responses. I'm sure technology can help them with that, uh, but mostly in terms of giving them assurances and confidence in themselves and shaping their, like, you know, their entity and their pathways. I love that you said that early, early pathway recognition is so critical to the student, especially when they want to be in fields that require a sequential order of courses, and I think that that, that those are the conversations that I feel personally often get misaligned in the dual credit space because Dual credit is usually marketed as this is an opportunity for your child to get some college credit and you don't have to pay for it out of pocket. And so then we send these students to take dual credit courses. Now some schools are better than others, but generally they say, oh, we're gonna sign up all these students as a general studies degree, and, uh, you know, they're gonna take. Basic math and basic science, but if you are a business student, you need a different type of science. If you're an engineering student, you need a different type of science. And then, and then there's, there's sub-sciences depending on which engineering, uh, field you need, right? If you are going to study math, anything in STEM is going to require a sequential order of sciences, and, and when we don't share that information. We are expecting the student to figure it out and we're expecting the student to self-advise themselves. Now these are dual credit students, right? So they're at 16 or 18. Do they actually really know what they want to do when they grow up? Yeah, Probably not. And so, uh, we're, we're expecting that they follow this sequential order or know when to ask or raise their hand. And so what happens or what I've seen in my aunt Abby. Uh, very frequently is we get a student with 30 credit hours and the parent is upset because only 15 credit hours transfer over, and, and we have to explain, ma'am, your child took Economics one, Economics 2, and they're, they're a computer science student. They need calculus and physics, and, you know, all different types, different set of classes, and so it, it's just, it's such a, as you mentioned, It it's such an interesting space because it's influenced by accreditation, by what faculty want, by what the institution wants, um, it's, it's also, um, impacted by legislation and funding, you know, and financial aid seems like it's fun, it's changing all the time, right? So like funding and, and all of the other things that have to align so that a student can perfectly follow a pathway. Yeah, 100%. And, and I actually think like dual credit is a good example. It's I don't know, this might be a hot take. We also work with schools like outside of US and Australia and other places. And one thing I have noticed is like, I think the consequences of a student misunderstanding something is more on a student and less on an institution today. You know, and I, and I would actually think about like, what would it be if the consequences were at least equal on the institution as well, right? Whenever like that kind of like miss happens, we are working with a school, uh, recently, also a community college, and we ran this kind of report for them because, you know, degree audit is part of it. Uh, and that report identified what are the other certificates or programs students have made accidental progress. Without realizing, right? And this school had like. 3000 students who had a credential that they had no idea about. Oh wow, right? And so we tell this to, uh, you know, the decision to ask us to run this report. We ran it, uh, we gave it back to them. And now they're saying, well, these students now can walk on the commencement ceremony that they didn't know about, right? They thought they were like still missing something. And they're like, we don't even have enough seats available for these many graduates, uh, coming out like last minute by taking these certificates and other things that they have also made progress towards, right? And I'm like, I wonder like why is it on a student to figure out these kind of things, right? Like, so how are they supposed to know? How are they supposed to interpret that? How, like, so, so I, I feel like if we can make this like somehow like the consequence on institution is also quite high when a student like is misrepresent. Presented or is lost in something, maybe like there'll be like, there'll be ways when we can be encouraged to fix these problems, right? And, and again, technology is part of it. It's just more about like that mindset that we have to figure out how to help students like uh navigating all of this. I mean, and some students don't know what to ask, quite frankly. Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly, yes, yes, yes, exactly. They don't know, uh, some students, some students flat out don't know what they need to be asking. So I, I, when I was a transfer recruiter, Sabi, I used to schedule meetings, one on one meetings with transfer students, and I am not joking, half of them, 50% of the students that I saw in a week, would say, hi, I'm interested in transferring. And I scheduled a meeting, but I don't know what I'm supposed to ask you. Hm hm hm, you know, and like they and like they really don't. I, I, I'm curious with all this like Claude and Chad GPT and all of this, like, you know, uh, conversation at your fingertips thing, do you think that will change? I think, you know, I've, I've sat and I thought about this because I think it's gonna make it more challenging. Yeah, because we I think that like tools like AI like chat GPT they they only regurgitate what you teach them and so if uh if your bot, I call my my bot, if if your bot is not taught. And, and you're unprompted, I think it's just going to pick up pieces of the internet that is going to further mislead students into the wrongful direction. That is my fear. That is, that I, I love AI and I love technology, and technology makes our world better, and I'm 100% champion of technology, but I'm fearful that, so. I'll give you, I'll give you a more practical example. Uh, before I did higher education, I was in auto sales, and when the internet started to explore, explode, people, people, uh, would come into the dealership as I was trying to sell them a car thinking that they had already done. I mean, they would print out papers of, I already did my research on this vehicle, and I already know that you can sell it to me at this price and discount it at this much price, and, and I would, I would go down the fine print and say yes, um. I can discount you $2000 but see this fine line right here says, Are you a military member? This is a military discount. Oh no, the internet said, and you know, so they would come in already with like their wall up and thinking that they knew everything when they had this very small amount of information and, and they would, um, make assumption. Before they even got into the finance world, right, like in the finance, it's a whole other situation if you have good credit, bad credit, mid credit, like that changes everything else. And so, but, but I remember clients coming in thinking that they knew it all and so it was difficult to have conversations and try to sell them a product because they felt like they already knew more than the salesperson on the product. And I think about, I think about AI in that manner. Um, it could be very helpful, but it could be misleading if it picks up the wrongful information for a student as a student is trying to navigate by themselves. That is such an interesting point you mentioned because I'm thinking when it comes to degree progress or transfer rules, you could have two webs, 2 pages of the same campus saying two different information. Right? You can have a department page saying this course can count, and then you can have a registrar page saying this course cannot count, and it's maybe to do with catalog here. It may be to do with somebody forgot to change the, what courses can count and not count, right? And then here's your uh crawler of these boards going to one of the websites and saying, well, I guess this course can count, and the student can have this false sense of assurance. That well, Claude told me it could, uh, it could, uh, and honestly as you were saying it, I was thinking like maybe we should think about building this like an official version of these tools. Universities are thinking about like certifying students automatically out of teic so they clearly trust the audit rules in the system and. We say something is a lot more, uh, like, you know, real than something on the internet saying it. So anyways, you gave me an idea that maybe we should think about. We're full of ideas, but I'll give you, I'll give you a practical 15 minutes before we jumped on this podcast, I was talking to, uh, one of my enrollment specialists, and a student, she, she spoke to a student yesterday, and the student had a pathway. And the student told her, I want a code, and she said, OK, well, you can take a CIS degree, a bachelor of CIS with a coding, um, minor, uh, or a coding certificate. Uh, and the students said, no, I want to do computer science, which is still coding. It's still the same relevant field, but both of them side to side had different requirements. So one of them required physics in cal and one of them didn't. And so if the student is typing on chat GPT like I wanna be a coder. And it takes them to a degree plan that does not require calculus. The student is gonna self-advise themselves, not take calculus, and then find out, find out down the road when they try to transfer that they need a calculus classes is gonna experience frustration. But, and so I think, I think the science for, for AI is in the prompting, and I don't know, and so if we go with the theory or with the idea that students don't know what to ask, then will they know. How to prompt AI to get the accurate responses that they need. As they try to self-advise, uh, yeah, I couldn't, and, and I can think of like these examples everywhere. I can think of it in financial aid. I can think about study abroad. I can think about, yeah, yeah, you are very right that when you have conflicting or outdated stale information, uh, that you are training these systems on, uh, it would mislead students. Yeah, and so that takes us to like a really good point, like, what role does technology play in academic advising? I mean, I think like, I, I, so I think to me it's more about like a super powerful tool that we can give in the hands of advisors and registrar, right? Like it's, it requires like, based on this conversation, adult supervision in, in some sense, right? Uh, so, so I think there's, there's, I, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about two parts here. One is like, we've got to make sure that our content, especially for tools that are like officially adopted by the institution like Selic, right? Uh, that how accurate and trustworthy and complete the data is that you are feeding into the system. That's part one, right? Like you, you, you cannot be like, hey, well, we will write prerequisites in course description. Go figure it out. No, like the structure, write it in the right way. And if you do those kind of things, then it allows students to get the transactional part of advising done beforehand. You know, I've met multiple advisors who have told me that they start their advising session by, by looking at Selig and saying that, do you have a plan? And now they can review, they can be like, wait, why would you take these two courses together? That's a bad idea, you know, they could build on top of students like ideation that they could do in their PJs at midnight, you know, in their dorms, right? Uh, and so I think there's a little bit of a separation you can do by advising, becoming a lot more transformative, a lot more like human, and you take out the transactional and the, you know, like those kind of Q&A part done by, by technology. So I think that's the role I would imagine systems can take, uh, assuming, again, assuming the data is, is good, that they can, um, they can do that. And, and I think we are sitting at a very Real, really real opportunity now of like what is not possible before has become possible. I'll give you an example of that. Uh, exceptions is, I, I, I have learned is not an exception in higher ed, right? Yeah. So, and it creates a lot of equity issues, right? Because, uh, and we sometimes look at the data and we say that this particular course has been made as an exception for like 60% of students. The remaining 40 had no idea and if they were never showing up to advising session, they would not know this could count. And it creates all kinds of equity. The issues. So we build this tool that provides guidance to the department leads saying like, hey, here's your distribution of all the exceptions of different requirements, right? And then we can now give them recommendations saying, we would recommend you should make this requirement slightly different because you're anyways making all these exceptions to, to make that possible, right? So, so I do think the data part being good, you can actually, technology can help with that as well. It doesn't have to be all manual and all on a person, uh, to, to navigate that. So, so I think take out the mechanical part, focus on the humanness. I think that's kind of how I see this like collaboration with technology coming through, uh, especially as we are here in Global Advising Week. I think like advisors could play. And I actually think it will also be enjoyable for them to do the work a lot more meaningful than answering transactional questions. What advising pain points are institutions most commonly trying to solve? Um, I mean, the big one is burnout. Right? Advisors have like a lot of students that they are advising and they don't really have enough bandwidth to make that possible, right? Uh, academic planning is another big point that like I would, especially because when you have like hundreds of minors and like so many programs, you may not even know all the rules and all the requirements and how all of these things come together. Add a layer of transfer rules on top of it, it gets even more um complex. So, I think that's another one, like just like Navigating academic planning is another one, and then I also see like surfacing students like who do I pay attention to, and I actually think fairness and equal are two different things in advising, right? Some people need a lot more help than others. And so I, I often hear institutions saying like, can you help me prioritize the student population where I can pay attention to because the load I have, I can either spend 5 minutes. And do it for, for 400 students I have, or I would love to find out the 100 who need help today, and I can prioritize those, those, those are the typical themes we, uh, we see around this. And so then thinking and thinking of like technology and the human connection, I'm so glad that you mentioned this, um, several times. It's not meant to replace the human, it's meant to actually improve the the student experience. And so what is, in general, what does a student-centered technology actually look like? Um, I mean, I think that that's the starting point, right? Like, are you helping somebody or are you replacing somebody? And I think like our job is to help the people who understand that. Now, I will also, by the way, be very blunt on this, like, not every advisor is, is thinking in that way, right? Like they, they might actually are only doing the transactional part and are not interested in the transformational part. And, and I think that's a very different conversation to have. Uh, but otherwise, technology should be supporting them. I also think sometimes it's around like, Communication and how we communicate to the student because this is all about very sensitive to a person who has not even fully grown as a, as an adult. And so it's one thing to say, I'm going to tell a student that you are screwed, or it's a different thing to tell an advisor that these students need help and why don't you communicate with a human touch, like ask them to meet you, you know, uh, for appointments and those kind of things, right? So I think the human-centered technology is It's very much like working in tandem with the people who are there to support, but also being very clear when that when that support is unnecessary by a human and technology can help around that. So being just aware of that is, I think, one piece. The other thing is just user experience. You know, uh, I will say, Loria, like when I look at technology that I use every day that you would have on your app, on your phone, and then you look at the technology that higher ed provides to students and to advisors, the delta is so significant. I, it should be a crime, you know, like, uh, the, like the kind of like sequel queries. asking students to run or not students, you know, advisors to understand or the kind of reporting we have limited to just like institutional research to know how to use is, is just not only it creates inefficiency, it creates like blind spots, uh, for people, right? So I think like we have to, I always ask myself, like, would somebody, like, are we building a Bloomberg terminal, you know, or are we building like a Spotify? You know, and I think like it limits the people who can have access to it. So, so one is like thinking about what problems are worth solving and what problems are for students. But then the second is, once you decide which problems to solve, are we solving it in a way that is a human narrative, or is it a complex like machine that only a few would know on campus to use? That's beautiful. And, and of course that all just ties hand in hand with allowing advisors the capacity to be able to identify other things like identify if students are, are not emotionally well, if students need financial resources, right? If they have um. If they don't have enough food in their home to, to be able to, uh, continue in their education and, you know, daycare, you know, all those real-life things, and I think that, that, uh, I'm with you, technology should help with the transactional part while providing the guidance so that these academic advisors are able to be impactful, um, in, in connecting the students to, to resources because what we don't want anybody in higher education, we don't want people to stop out. And so, uh, the stop out rates keep increasing and so how do we do that? I think that that it's people, it's that connectedness to people, right, and ensuring that you know you have a person you can go to just the same way you went to Mark, uh, knowing that you can count on him. And that he would provide you with that interpretation of, of what you needed at the time. Exactly, exactly. And by the way, this is a very real problem right now with, with Claude and Chad GBT. I'm seeing, uh, and not just for students but generally is people try to ask questions and these systems don't realize what their boundaries are. And they'll advise to its extreme. I recently saw this John Oliver episode which was like quite depressing to watch, uh, on this topic, right? And I think like I, we were talking about this chatbot idea. I would love a technology that says that is a question for someone to answer, for a human to answer, you know. Oh yes, and I, I am not the right, like, you know, person there, and I feel like these tools are a little bit too, too proud of themselves to ask for help, right. Uh, and I think that's another thing worth also considering, like, are we like making sure that these tools understand their limitations and they call for help when the, when the limitations are reached. Yeah, yep. So Sabi, what excites you most about the future of academic advising? Oh my God, so much. I, I think like the uh yours and mine, and I think everyone on this planet's roles are, are, are going to transform. I think in the next like few years, uh, I'm sitting here in Silicon Valley, so I see like this, like more, I have a, like a front row visibility to what is happening. So, I think like, What we can do, what are we, what, what our potential is as, as humans, as advisors, is going to change, like, step function, I think over the next, uh, next few years. So I'm very, very excited about that. I think people say like, I hate this part of my job. And I feel like technology is going to take those parts away, you know, and the parts that you enjoy becomes a lot more, uh, a lot more real. So I'm, I'm very excited about that. I, I think Advisors are, again, the advisors who are in it because they want to help students are about to get supercharged, uh. But at the same time, it's it's my advice to campuses would be to find the bandwidth for that change, you know, um, I'm learning myself as a leader in an organization when you say like, hey, this is an exciting future, also do everything you are doing right now and not drop anything, that's not exciting. You know, and so I'm figuring out like how do you provide like buffer and space for people to like rethink what their role is, the processes are, the workflows are, the use cases are, uh, I think it's, it's, it's beautiful of what is possible. I, I really do believe that. Is there anything that concerns you? I mean, we talked about some examples, right, like where technology becomes like crazy. I also think like some people in my mind are going too deep into these uh excitements and they are thinking about like, well, we don't need advisors anymore, you know, um, or, or like, oh yeah, these roles, and I actually don't think that's the right mindset to, to have. It's more about like, what can these resources do for you. You know, and you can, it's totally OK to set the expectations differently because of technology. So I think that's one, like just people drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit in a different way, I think is what worries me. Technology, answering questions where it shouldn't is what, uh, you know, uh, worries me. And, and I think like higher ed staying behind worries me. I think we are in a very like critical moment, especially with the whole changes happening right now in, in the US. I do think it's uh, it's ripe for change. You know, um, if I was a higher ed leader right now, like, I also see optimism because this kind of, like, um, you know, inertia or like chaos creates like innovation, you know, ideation around it. So that's exciting to look for, but I, but I worry if people also get disappointed or just give up or do nothing, uh, and just like, you know, deer in front of headlights kind of situation. Those are the kind of things that I would be worried about. Concern, yeah, at the end of the day, technology can't, uh, give us a hug. It can't cry with us, right? It can't hold our hand. Uh, it can't tell us that things are gonna be OK. It can't, it can't follow up and say, hey, how was that hard day that you had, so. I, I think, you know, in, in higher ed, uh, from a, from a perspective of a millennial leader, uh, we're excited for, for technology. We're also adaptable, right? Cause we were around when the internet came to be and Facebook came to be and all these things have the iPod and all. These things. So, so I think we're adaptable, but I think, I think, um, bandwidth and mental health is important for our staff, and technology can help with that. Um, I know, I always tell my staff, I want you to feel energized. I don't want you to feel drained, so. If there are times when you say, hey, I need to leave early, or don't miss your child's soccer game, that's important. You shouldn't miss it, you know, um, how do we, how do we find that balance of using technology so that the staff don't feel burned out, so that they can come in every day, because these are the people pouring into our students. So the people pouring into our students have to be in the right, uh, mind space to be able to provide all of those needs to the students that we serve. Can, can I give a very practical, like, you know, uh, learning that I just recently on that topic, right? I think I would suggest leaders, registrars to choose their words carefully and things, uh, be very centered around audience and how we come up with it. So, a very practical thing we have seen is speaking of burnout is when we would say, here's a training session for Steic, you know, I would hear people say, man, I have no time. Like I have so many things to do. I have no time to learn one more system and training and all that kind of stuff, right? And we said, wait, why are we training them for a system? What's the point? Oh, well, it will help them, you know, get alerts about students when they're struggling, and it will help them automate these parts of their processes. So then I, we changed that. Instead of saying training on Steic, we said 5 ways advising will be more efficient on campus, you know, and we talked about and it was, it actually changed that, uh, the content from training to, hey guys, we heard these are the 5 top things that keeps you busy and advising. Here's a system, and here's how it will help you in each of those things. Do you have questions? And it's the same kind of like message, but lands so well that we are there to help them, then asking them more from, uh, from them. So, it's just a very practical thing, but I think we have seen a quite a big impact of just doing that. Man, words can, words can change a dynamic so fast, so fast, um, and, and so just in closing, Sabi, God, we've had a great time. I feel like we can talk. Forever and ever, uh, but what message would you share with advisors during Global Advising Week, um, I think you said it like they're doing God's work. I agree. I have met countless students, uh, where an advisor played a role that was transformative in their lives. Uh, I mean, I think, as I said, it was so true for me that I named the company after, after that person. So this is, you do a very meaningful and transformative work. Um, and just like be excited about what these tools and technologies can do, uh, in helping you out. Uh, your work is meaningful, um, and I think these technology things will make it even more meaningful, so lean in, you know, and learn more and grow yourself, uh, through these, through these directions. Thank you so much, Sabi for the conversation and for bringing us stelic,-- which is such an important-- tool. Thank you so much for it, and thank you for having me on the, on the podcast. I, I loved it and enjoyed it too. Thank you. Have a good one.-- Thank-- you. As we close out this special Global Advising Week episode, I keep coming back to one simple truth. Students should not need insider knowledge to succeed in higher education. The future of learning mobility depends on institutions creating systems that are transparent, connected, and compassionate. Technology matters, data matters, pathways matter, but ultimately, students remember the people who helped them believe that they could move forward. Thank you again to Stelle for joining us and for the work that you're doing to rethink how institutions support students through advising and mobility. And to all advisors listening during Global Advising Week, thank you. Your work changes trajectories every single day. This is transferee, where learning mobility meets practice, where transfer is more than a process, it's a promise because learning doesn't stop and neither should opportunity.