Sooner or later, you’ll need to see your lecturer, or your tutor, or an academic advisor, or you may want some other question answered and you’ve heard person X is the one to see. You try to contact the person’s office, and there’s no answer. What next?

Academics are all different, a bit like students. Some spend very little time in their office, some spend lots. But most are pretty busy, and you cannot expect to find people at any time of the night or day, just waiting for you to pop in with a question.

What are they busy at? Teaching, preparing teaching materials, administration and research are the things most people do most of the time. Some of us occasionally even get to go to a conference to present the results of our research. Some academics also do consulting work, which helps them keep up with industry trends.

The first step is to do some homework to find out how the academic prefers to be contacted. If the academic is lecturing one of your subjects, check the subject outline. Many lecturers publish their preferred method of contact in the subject outline. If it is an academic advisor you are trying to visit, go during their published advising times, otherwise make an appointment.

Most academics in the Department display a timetable, often on the door, showing when they’re teaching, what times they have set aside for research, and most important for you, the times they keep “office hours”, which is to say, when they make themselves available if possible for drop-in calls. (It’s not always possible: meetings are arranged, people fall sick, …)

Some academics use an "open door" policy.  If their door is open, they are happy to be interrupted.  If the door is closed, they do not want to be interrupted even if they are there.  Not all academics work this way – usually the note outside the door will explain if this is the case.  Every academic is different, so you need to work out how your lecturer(s) in a particular subject prefers to meet with students.

But sometimes you might need to contact an academic outside their consultation hours. So how can you get in touch sooner? There are several ways, but the most useful ones are:

• Email: You have an email address, and so do all academics. Retire to a computer, and send an email explaining your problem and asking for an appointment. Often a reply email can solve the problem without needing to meet. Your email should describe briefly what you want to talk about – don’t just send a message saying “Can we meet tomorrow at 3pm?” without saying why. You can get an academic’s email address from subject handouts, through the staff page of this website or through the UTS Staff Directory. Most academics will reply to email within a day or two, but again, sometimes patience is needed (e.g. the academic may be overseas at a conference).

Be aware that for email about subjects, some academics insist upon your email being in a particular format. This makes it easier for academics who are dealing with dozens of emails each day. For example, they may insist that the subject number is in the Subject line of the email, and that you include your student ID in the body of the email. Read the subject outline before sending email and make sure you follow the instructions – some academics will ignore your email if it doesn’t follow their instructions!

• Phone call: Some academics use voicemail, or they may even be there when you ring. Phone is not as useful as email, because if the academic has to phone you back, you might not be there when they try (this is called “telephone tag”, and can be quite frustrating). You find phone numbers the same way you find email addresses.

Email is usually the best approach, but it is important for you to do some homework first to find out how the academic prefers to be contacted.

So good luck! People are happy to help you, even if they don’t sit in their offices waiting for you. It’s always worth a little bit of effort to make contact.