Advising Adventures

In the course of overhauling the College curriculum, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) deferred undergraduates’ selection of a concentration—their major field of study—from the end of freshman year until the end of their third semester. The intent was to give students more freedom to explore their interests through freshman seminars and electives. At the same time, FAS members wanted to ensure that students could make more informed choices; they worried particularly about those pursuing science and engineering concentrations, which often require not only a sequence of courses, but also a larger number of courses than are mandated by other fields. The faculty therefore directed that a new academic-advising mechanism be created at the end of freshman year by the College’s new Advising Programs Office. We asked two first-year students, one relatively confident about his likely concentration and one less sure, to report on the initial “Advising Fortnight,” held from April 9 through April 22.

~The Editors

“You have to do one!” calls Rebekah Lorenz Getman from behind a pile of schedules and “Advising Fortnight” stress balls. The College’s Advising Programs Office has staffed a table on the way out of Annenberg dining hall, where handfuls of freshmen are leaving lunch. Getman, the APO’s program manager for concentration advising, sounds equally enthusiastic each time she explains the mandatory advising conversation to a new group of students.

“We hope it’s more than one” conversation, clarifies Inge-Lise Ameer, assistant dean of advising programs, but she knows that busy freshmen tend to prioritize tomorrow’s mid-term over next year’s academic schedule. The APO made the fortnight mandatory so that this year’s freshmen (at least those too conscientious to lie on the on-line reporting tool) would not put off advising meetings until the days before next semester’s deadline for submitting plans of study.

Ameer and Getman have also learned from past years’ “piecemeal” concentration fairs, in which related departments set up information tables on Annenberg’s rarely visited second floor. Tonight at dinner, no one in Annenberg can miss the horseshoe of tables that cuts down the hall’s hardwood floor and along its far wall. The tables seat 44 concentrations’ worth of professors and undergraduate peer advising fellows (PAFs), forcing freshmen to sit on the floor or drift around the room with picnic-inspired food on plastic plates.

The dinner conversation contains some gripes about the unconventional meal, but we also discuss our concentration choices. Ariel Shaker ’10 makes faces at her perverse friends who actually want to spend the next three years studying science or math—she’s considering both English and the comparative study of religion. Many fortnight events (like “History, Government, Economics, and Social Studies: What’s the Difference?”) target students like her, who are sure of their academic passions but not of their specific disciplines. Michael Brenner, Glover professor of applied math and applied physics, who is applied math’s director of undergraduate studies, demonstrates a similar focus when I ask him for a general pitch. “We don’t have a pitch,” he corrects. Brenner considers it his job to be informative; most freshmen who approach his table bring specific questions. By contrast Chenoweth Moffatt, the earth and planetary sciences (EPS) academic administrator, describes passing students as looking “uncertain, a bit dazed.” She and her PAFs agree that people don’t really come to college planning to study EPS, so they try to attract freshmen to the concentration, asking about their interests and then trying to find a corresponding aspect of the field. When I say that I prefer studying smaller things than the planet as a whole, Clara Blattler ’08 needs only a moment before she recommends a professor who’s researching climate-affecting microbes.

During the next two weeks, many students (including me) find ourselves too absorbed in work to attend as many events as we would like, but others make time to take advantage of the fortnight’s offerings. On Thursday night, I attend a seminar where six life scientists present summaries of their research. A dozen or so of us stick around for dessert, or to talk to the presenters or advisers. I ask Thomas Torello, the molecular and cellular biology (MCB) concentration adviser, about the differences between MCB and chemical and physical biology, and he explains that the main distinction involves the tools used (molecular biology versus chemistry, physics, etc.). I should read the descriptions of the concentrations in the “Advising Fortnight in the Life Sciences” booklet, and highlight key words. He recommends that I talk to lots of people, as well, because distinguishing between the concentrations depends largely on feel—that ineffable quality that these kinds of events are designed to convey.

My friend Mike Murray’s turning point comes on Monday night at the Life Sciences Advising Open House. One of his prospective concentrations, biological anthropology, is at the same table as the unfamiliar human and evolutionary biology, so he ends up talking to people in both fields. He likes the advisers’ enthusiasm, and now he’s deciding between the two concentrations. Other students mention the value of meeting upperclassmen from different fields, or learning which concentrations allow them to take the classes they want. And some of the events are enjoyable in themselves. “This food makes me want to do statistics,” comments one girl at that department’s Asian-flavored luncheon.

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