I’ve been ‘working’ on a project this summer. Great concept: but not enough follow through. As a last ditch attempt to make some progress, I thought I’d appeal to the Brian Lamb–Alan Levine school of inspiration and ask for help from you.
Our school, like most, has a first year advising program. And like most I suspect, it doesn’t work very well. By the end of the first semester, only 1/3 to ½ of the students show up for the (group) advising meetings. They act as if the meetings don’t have much value for them (what economists call ‘revealed preference’). Students seem to view their individual advising meetings before course registration as strategy sessions for how best to check off all the boxes for graduation.
Strangely enough, we take the advising process seriously, both the administrators who develop the program and the faculty who implement it. My perception is that the administrators are too far away from students to make it meaningful for them: the advising curriculum seems to focus on deadlines and contact information to address various academic problems. Similarly, I see the faculty take on this as a part time job, doing the best they can with the curriculum provided.
So I have decided to rebel and create what we’re calling an “alternative, subversive advising curriculum.” (I have some co-conspirators, but at stage I’ll save them from any blame until there’s credit to share. 😉 ) I find it not a little ironic that the administrator in charge of the advising program has encouraged us to do whatever we can to improve it.
We have developed a rough outline for an alternative curriculum, as described below. What I’d like your help is with two not-so-simple questions:
* Are these the best topics, and
* What discussions and activities would capture students’ attention and be useful to them for each of the topics.
No pressure, right?
Our basic concept is to turn the advising curriculum into a meta-conversation about the student’s program of study as an undergraduate (with some glances towards the future). One sub-theme is the need to take charge of one’s college education, rather than merely letting it happen. Another is that intellectual activity occurs outside of the classroom as well as within.
There are five group meetings planned for the year: two in the Fall and three in the Spring. Our tentative topics for the meetings are:
1. Welcome to the ‘caravan of learning’. Is college different from 13th grade? (Yes!) How so?
2. Connections Project (to be discussed in another post)
3. Why a College-degree is far more than a collection of courses, or even a GPA. (Life with and without a college degree: financial and more meaningful consequences)
4. What is a Major? How Should You Choose Yours? Does the choice of a major matter? (First look at planning the four years)
5. Where to go from here (declaring a major, reading outside the syllabi, thinking big thoughts)
We plan to make all the official advising curriculum available online. We’re considering watching and discussing an appropriate movie together, that promotes thought on these topics. Any suggestions.
So, the floor is open. Are these topics the best you can imagine? (At this stage, we’re not wedded to any of them.) What would you want to see included in discussion of these topics? What exercises/games/activities can you suggest to promote this meta conversation?
This might really be an overlap with what you have, or might just be implicit within it, but “What is an intellectual life?” springs to mind. Maybe even “What is an intellectual life, and what does that have to do with a major?” I’m thinking that that invites a way for people with longer experience in “intellectual life” — the faculty — to talk about what that means to them, personally. The best advising (both formal and informal) I got as an undergrad was in moments where my profs talked about what that meant to them. One huge possible benefit to that would be to help first-year students understand where their profs are coming from and what they do, especially in terms of a research plan. Might offer an analogy between professorial research plan and undergraduate major?