Set Up a Personal Advising Assistant

1. Go to chat.openai.com
2. Click "Sign up" and create an account with your email or Google login
3. You'll land on the main chat interface, a white text box in the center of the screen

What you should see: A clean chat interface with a "Message ChatGPT" text box at the bottom. No login errors. Troubleshooting: If you see a "service unavailable" message, try again after a few minutes. It's usually a temporary load issue.

1. Click the pencil/new chat icon in the upper left to start a fresh conversation
2. In the message box, you're going to write your "setup prompt," a description of your role and context that primes ChatGPT for your specific needs

Type or paste the following into the message box, customized with your own details:

I am an academic advisor at a [public/private] [4-year university/community college/liberal arts college]. I advise approximately [number] students in [major/program area or "undeclared/general studies"].

My most common tasks are:
- Writing advising session notes after appointments
- Drafting outreach emails to at-risk students flagged by our early alert system
- Explaining degree requirements to students in plain language
- Writing follow-up emails after appointments
- Handling parent inquiries under FERPA constraints

My communication style: [warm and encouraging / professional and direct / supportive but clear about expectations]

Important context:
- I use [EAB Navigate/Salesforce/institutional CRM] for advising notes
- My institution uses [Banner/PeopleSoft] as the Student Information System
- FERPA is always a consideration — I will never include real student names or ID numbers in my prompts
- When I say "write a session note," I need something I can paste directly into my CRM

For every task, please:
- Write in a tone that matches my communication style above
- Keep emails under 150 words unless I specify otherwise
- Use [Student Name] as a placeholder in all communications
- Never include fictional student data — I will provide all specifics

Ready to help?

Press Enter to send this.

What you should see: ChatGPT will respond confirming it understands your setup and is ready to help. It will often summarize back your key context points.

1. Click on the conversation title at the top left (it will auto-generate a name like "Academic Advisor Setup")
2. Click the pencil icon next to the title and rename it to "Advising Assistant: [Year]" so you can find it easily
3. Every time you want to use your assistant, click this conversation to continue where you left off

What you should see: Your conversation is saved in the left sidebar under the renamed title.

Try one of these to verify it's working well:

Test 1: Session notes: Type: "Write a session note for this appointment: junior, psychology major, discussed switching to social work, needs to check prerequisites, action item: send list of social work prereqs. No academic concerns."

Test 2: At-risk email: Type: "Write an outreach email to a student who got a D at midterms. Warm and inviting, not punitive."

Test 3: Policy explanation: Type: "Explain this degree requirement in plain language for a freshman: [paste any confusing catalog language]"

If the output matches your voice and needs, your assistant is ready.