It is no secret that Dartmouth's advising system lags far behind some of its peer institutions'. By the first week of my freshman year, it was clear to me that I would have to navigate the College's academic maze on my own. While I was anxious to take complete control over my education as an ambitious freshman, looking back I see how much I missed because I did not have anyone familiar with the landscape to direct me.
During orientation, I received an email from a professor who introduced himself as my faculty advisor and invited me to a lunch at Molly's to talk about course selection. I logged onto my BannerStudent account to learn a little bit more about my advisor, only to be disappointed that he taught in the biology department, as I had no interest in the subject. While he seemed to take a greater interest in me than some of the advisors that had been assigned to my first friends at the College, I quickly learned that my advisor would be of little help. How could I expect a biology professor to know what courses in anthropology, government, engineering or studio art I should take? I simply could not.
While matching me with a professor more in tune with my interests would have helped, I do not think that this idea is a viable solution for Dartmouth's advising system. First, there are only so many professors in a given department to advise students majoring in that discipline. Second, most freshmen, at least from what I have observed, think they know what they want to do with their education but quickly learn they were off base in the first place. Because one's academic interests are, for the most part, uncertain in the first week of freshman year, perhaps it would be more useful to have a formal advisor outside the boundaries of a strictly academic perspective.
The best pieces of wisdom that my advisor passed on to me were how to search the academic timetable and how to select courses on time. For the most part, professors who serve as faculty advisors do very little advising for their mentees. Blame lies not with professors for making too little time for their freshman advisees, but rather with the ambiguity in the advising system that makes it difficult for professors to deliver their advice. In order to better the advising system currently in place at Dartmouth, the College should rid professors from all formal freshman advising roles.
Instead, professors should be reserved, primarily, for sophomores who have done some exploring of the academic side of Dartmouth and, for the most part, have a clear direction for their major in mind. By the middle of their sophomore year, students will be able to glean much more useful advice regarding higher-level classes, independent studies and potential thesis writing. In the meantime, the best advisors for freshmen are their upperclassmen peers. Who knows better about what introductory courses to try out than students who have also taken those classes?
Over the short term, to replace the current system of faculty advisors, freshmen should be assigned to an upperclassman advisor rather than a professor. Not only will the upperclassman advisor be able to direct students one way or another in the direction of academics, he will also be able to present other extracurricular opportunities to freshmen in tune with their interests. Perhaps Dartmouth should even offer the incentive of paid advising for those upperclassmen who offer their time to mentor five or six freshmen.
In order to best match freshmen and upperclassmen with similar interests, the College should separate upperclassmen advisors into four categories: humanities, hard sciences, languages and engineering. Incoming freshmen should then be able to choose between one of the more ambiguous academic categories listed above and be paired with an upperclassman advisor who falls within that category. This will ensure that freshmen not only receive academic advising from someone who will at least know something about courses that lie within their academic interests, but will also afford freshmen advising on extracurricular and social levels.
