New College program gives frosh guidance

Out of all the decisions students make during their college careers, choosing a major can be one of the most stressful.

Hoping to make the selection process less intimidating, the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education has elicited the help of the College of Arts and Sciences to form the Major Advising Program, a peer advising program that will pair underclassmen who are curious about a particular major with upperclassmen already enrolled in the major. The matching is done through an on-line database.

"It's an entirely new way of advising that was not formerly available," said former SCUE Chairwoman Lindsey Mathews, a College senior. "It allows people that have recently been through the process to guide their peers through it, which is something the advising system could not provide before."

After battling computer difficulties for months, the program's organizers will finally kick off the program on Feb. 25. Beginning Monday, upperclassmen will be able to sign up as advisers.

Prospective advisers are required to submit a letter of recommendation from a faculty or staff member. Once accepted into the program, the advisers will be responsible for taking the underclassmen to an advanced class in the major. The adviser will also be expected to answer questions about the department and course of study associated with the major.

The aim of the program is to empower students to make more educated choices about their majors and to feel more confident about their decision.

That decision is particularly challenging, given the wide variety of choices that Penn offers. The University's 50 majors cover a wide range of subjects -- from conventional majors, like english and political science, to more obscure ones, such as Slavic language and literature.

More than 70 juniors and seniors from 25 different majors have already volunteered to be advisers. SCUE's goal is to have at least one adviser to represent every major, and several for each of the larger majors. The program has already exceeded that goal in several of the more popular majors, such as economics and history.

"One of SCUE's constant goals is to make students more conscientious about designing their education instead of going through their four years passively," Mathews said. "We hope this will be a tool they can use to that purpose."

College of Arts and Sciences Assistant Dean Alice Kelley said she can not wait for the program to be fully functional.

For years, Kelley has advised students to get in touch with current majors to find out what their field of interest entails. However, she warns that the new program is only meant to bolster the current advising system, not to overhaul it.

"It's not supposed to replace consulting with faculty in the department -- not by a longshot," Kelley said. "It's meant as a supplement."

"At this point, people turn to the person down the hall and say, 'Hey, what's a good course?,'" she added. "That's useful information, but it's limited in scope. Now, students will have a whole bunch of people to turn to."

MAP has been in the works since SCUE began working last spring on a way to improve the current advising system. After the committee tried to implement the database on its own without success, they approached the College office asking for a partnership on the project, and office administrators enthusiastically agreed to take part.

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Beeman is a strong supporter of the idea and said he sees MAP as a collaborative effort involving SCUE, the College and the undergraduate department chairs.

"This is a very substantial undertaking," Beeman said. "We have 50 majors. The very richness of the choice students have about the major is wonderful, but it's also very daunting."

"For many students, the choice of major is pretty clear when they enter, but for most, it's not," he added. "We spend a lot of time worrying about how students find their pathway to the most successful education for them."

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