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The academic advising system at Dartmouth aims to give students the ability
and the resources to make intelligent and intentional academic choices that
suit their own (often evolving) intellectual goals. The community of Dartmouth
faculty, administrators, and staff understand one their key responsibilities to
be the advising of students.
The advising system consists of a host of different resources and people
that students will access at different points during their academic careers.
The system is decentralized by design. The enormous range of available
opportunities means that no single person has mastery of all the possible paths
or options; for example, a student should seek advice about possible
internships from a different source than advice about what classes to take in
any given term. Thus, students won't have a single advisor throughout their
entire time at Dartmouth, though at any given time they may rely on the advice
of a individual person (faculty member, administrator, peer advisor) to a
greater or lesser extent. As a student moves through Dartmouth, the nature of
the advice a students needs changes dramatically, and with these changes so do
the appropriate advice-networks. Academic advising works best when a student
appreciates his or her own role in understanding the questions they have and
taking the initiative to seek the advice they need.
The First Year (First-years)
The first year is generally a time of exploration for students. The
Dartmouth curriculum offers over 1600 courses of a variety and scope completely
unimaginable at the high-school level. Students at this stage are encouraged to
explore, pursue intellectual instincts, and make sure to fulfill first-year
requirements. Although some majors do require an earlier start (for example,
Engineering and other sciences), most majors can in fact be begun only in the
second year, and a student is encouraged to explore options. An entering
student is assigned an academic advisor from the faculty who will help the
student in electing courses for the first year and serve as a resource for
answering questions about how Dartmouth works (such as: how do I ask a faculty
for a letter of recommendation? what is an NRO?). Students do not need a
signature or permission from their academic advisor to register for or drop
classes, and should remember that their academic decisions are ultimately their
own. As students begin to explore academic offerings and focus their own
interests, students generally gravitate to faculty with whom they share
intellectual interests or have other things in common. This is a natural
evolution and should be encouraged, and a student may find that s/he outgrows
the usefulness of the assigned first-year advisor as the year moves on.
Students have other resources at this stage as well: the Deans in the First-year Office, the Academic Skills office, the
staff in the Office of the
Registrar, the counselors in Career Services, the Graduate
Assistants who live in their residence halls. The web also provides a wealth of
information. Students will often rely on advice from friends and older peers,
including their assigned UGAs (Undergraduate Advisors), the DOSCs
(Deans Office Student Consultants), and the PALs (Peer Academic Links)
organized by the Student Assembly. These sources of information and advice are
useful and valued, though students should seek multiple perspectives and are
encouraged to beware relying solely on information from peers.
The Second Year (Sophomores)
In the second year, the student is asked to identify their major course of
study. This is often a period during which students readjust their initial
intentions for study. Only 25% of students (both at Dartmouth and nationwide)
end up majoring in the subject they intended to upon matriculation. Moreover,
because of Dartmouth's flexibility in the definition of majors (majors,
modified majors, special majors, double majors, minors), students often face
the challenge not only of deciding what they want to major in, but how to
mix-and-match courses of study to their own particular intellectual and
post-graduate goals. This is also complicated by Dartmouth's unique “D-Plan”
and its wide array of off-campus study options. At the same time, these
decisions, though not irreversible, will nevertheless focus and constrain a
student's subsequent academic plans in a way that contrasts starkly with the
freedom to explore from the wide array of courses in the first year. Therefore,
this is sometimes a time of indecision and anxiety for students, because course
selection and major selection often feels as if it has larger implications for
personal identity and professional goals.
In this period some students may continue to consult with their advisor or
other faculty from their first year, though a student has no single officially
assigned advisor. This is by design, since, as experience indicates, any single
“assigned” advisor is unlikely to provide the full perspective that the student
requires at the stage. This does not mean that a student doesn't need advice,
but more that advice is going to come from a series of different sources; a
student should be encouraged to develop specific advising relationships with
faculty and staff that suits his or her individual needs and interests. This
can be a robust system, but it requires students to take the responsibility and
initiative for their own academic direction. Usually students will talk with
faculty in departments they are considering majoring in, and departments have
guidelines about how individual students request advising at this stage (see
Departmental Advising Contacts and Procedures). All faculty understand one
of their core roles is advising students, and generally take great pleasure in
shepherding students into their own field. Other resources, as in the first
year, includes their Upper-class
deans, Departmental Administrators, Career Services, Academic Skills,
Graduate Assistants, Community Directors, DOSCs
(Deans office Student Consultants) and other Peer Advisors (PALs), and
older students. From a purely informational perspective, most of the
particulars needed to plan a major are available on-line (in the ORC and
different departmental websites). Another print resource is the
The Sophomore Year, a booklet sent out to all rising sophomores when they
return to campus. That said, the challenge at this stage is not usually “what
courses do I take to fulfill this or that requirement?” but rather, “What do I
want to major in, and how does that relate to who I am and what direction I
want my life to take?”
The Third Year (Juniors)
Once a student identifies a major (or multiple majors), his or her academic
direction becomes clearer and more focused. Course selection and
para-curricular decisions are often clearer because the specific requirements
of a major will structure many curricular and scheduling choices. At this
stage, a student usually gets an academic advisor within the department they
have declared in (or multiple advisors if a student declares multiple majors).
Questions at this stage are often about finishing the requirements of the
major, engaging in research, whether or not to do a thesis, how to integrate
non-major course in their study, and so forth. Departments advise majors in
different ways. In some departments the chair or the vice chair functions as
the principal advisor. In other departments, all faculty serve as major
advisors. Often this means that the major advisor must approve and sign-off on
a student's academic plans, though a student might find the guidance of another
or other members of the faculty equally or more useful. Students preparing to
write a senior thesis, for instance, may find a particular faculty member to be
the most helpful voice of experience and guidance. In all cases, a student can
and should distinguish between the official-advisor and unofficial-advisors.
They may need a departmental chair, for instance, to sign their major card and
yet find the most useful direction comes from a member of the faculty they know
from a class they've taken. Students have often made important connections with
faculty with whom they have studied, and these will serve as the source of much
direction.
The Fourth Year (Seniors)
This pattern will continue into a student's final year. At this juncture,
students are working to complete their major(s) and the general education
requirements (distributive requirements, and so forth). Some are working on an
honors thesis. Many are thinking about what to do after graduation. Faculty
will serve as advisors in different capacities at this stage, perhaps advising
a student in independent research or directing students about graduate work in
their own field. As students focus on their post-graduate plans, they may find
the counselors in Career Services
helpful. In all cases, the successful advising experience relies on student
initiative and student engagement with their own intellectual process and the
faculty and administrators who can advise and guide them. One of the strengths
of Dartmouth's campus is the close and individual relationship that students
can have with members of the faculty and the non- “cookie cutter” academic
experience that Dartmouth's many academic opportunities provide. But the very
multiplicity and variability of the many potential academic experiences can be
destabilizing for students. In line with a tradition of liberal education,
Dartmouth's goal is to foster a spirit of individual learning and a community
of inquiry, and this works best when students are actively engaged in their own
learning process.
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