Meredith Ringel '07 would like a little guidance. As a sophomore, she will soon have to make decisions about her concentration, where to study abroad and even her plans after college.
She read the information booklet sent to sophomores over the summer. She went to the sophomore meeting. She has even talked to a sophomore dean about her concerns, but she still feels unsure.
"My biggest problem is when I go into talk to people they all say, 'Relax, you're on the right track, don't worry about it.' That reassures me, but I would still like some direction," she said.
Ringel went to meet with a dean but felt reluctant to share all her concerns with him. "It was the first time he had seen me in his life. I felt strange talking about my academic uncertainties to someone I had met five minutes ago," she said. "Inside I still feel very lost."
She isn't the only one. Many students have reported feeling abandoned during sophomore year, and the University is taking notice, said Dean of the College Paul Armstrong.
Though much progress has already been made, the University wants to provide better resources to give students the support they require, Armstrong said. To do so, administrators are considering a wide range of academic and advising initiatives.
The Academics and Administrative Affairs Committee of the Undergraduate Council of Students has met with associate deans of the college Steven Cornish and Carol Cohen to consider extending the Meiklejohn advising program to sophomores, said AAA chair Emily Blatter '07. A list of upperclassmen who will be available as Meiklejohn advisors to sophomores will be posted on the Web within the next two weeks, Cohen said.
The committee is also planning a forum for sophomores in November, where students and professors will be invited to critique the advising system and to come up with suggestions for improving it. A report with recommendations for improvements will be submitted to Armstrong in May, Blatter said.
Ringel said she thinks this would be a particularly good idea.
"Student feedback is definitely good as long as it's listened to. Too often schools have forums to placate people." But this could be very productive if the University took the students' suggestions to heart, she said.
The committee has also discussed having a "sophomore day" in which sophomores will come to campus during winter break to discuss issues such as concentrations and career plans and become familiar with the resources available to them, Blatter said. A pilot version of this program is being planned for this year's sophomore class in January, she said.
Armstrong said he hopes the initiatives will give sophomores a new enthusiasm about this stage of their education. "Sophomores are launching into the Brown academic experience on the foundations they laid for themselves in their freshman year," Armstrong said. "We want to help them think of this year as an exciting time."
Sophomores often say they feel abandoned after all the attention they received as first-years, Armstrong said. Without the guidance of the first-year seminar program, students are forced to navigate a maze of academic choices on their way to choosing a concentration, he said.
They also have to make decisions about research opportunities, study abroad and summer internships, according to Cohen, who is also the dean of sophomore studies. "Life suddenly gets real, which is both exciting and overwhelming," she said.
Faced with all these choices, some students start to feel burnt out or uninterested in their studies, she added. The result is the "sophomore slump."
And just as they need advising the most, the advising system is at its weakest, Cohen said. "Sophomores may have the greatest need for guidance and the right kind of input," she said. "But the needs of the other years are clearer."
Some resources already exist to help sophomores confront these challenges. Six of the 10 academic deans are responsible for providing support to sophomores. Academic advising is largely the responsibility of 11 Randall Counselors - administrators and faculty members who deal specifically with sophomores.
Cohen said sophomore deans and Randall Counselors have been "inundated" with students during the first few weeks of classes. Of this year's sophomores, 66 percent chose to keep their first-year advisor or selected another faculty member as an advisor, she said. The majority of the remaining 34 percent are consulting sophomore deans or Randall Counselors - approximately 475 students for 17 counselors and deans.
A sophomore chooses a Randall advisor or sophomore dean on a Web site accessible through the Dean of the College Web site or from a booklet they receive over the summer. The student can then make an appointment or, in the case of sophomore deans, visit the adviser during his or her open office hours. Randall Counselors and sophomore deans are especially helpful for sophomores who did not choose an advisor at the end of their first year, said Cohen.
Even students who already have advisors occasionally come to deans and counselors to discuss issues that they might not bring to their faculty advisors, Cohen said. "They often want a different perspective than that of their sophomore advisor or they see the problem as not right to bring to their advisor," she said.
Blatter said she and other sophomores have turned to Randall Counselors or sophomore deans after failed experiences with first-year advisors or concentration advisors. "Many sophomores don't have advisors at all," she said. "And others didn't get the inspiration or advice they needed from concentration advisors."
A Randall Counselor or sophomore dean will often refer students to faculty members or fellowships that may be valuable for them, said Cohen. She described the work of the sophomore deans as a series of "staging conversations" that provide networking opportunities for students.
E-mails and advising bulletins are being used to keep sophomores informed about their resources and to announce events such as the concentration fair today, Armstrong said. The sophomore advising Web site and the booklet sent home over the summer are other ways the University is trying to provide guidance while allowing students to make more decisions themselves, he said.
There is no "one size fits all" for advising in the sophomore year, Armstrong said. Instead, the University seeks to accommodate students' diverse interests and needs and to present them with a "palette of options," he said.
Armstrong stressed the need for a "distinctive set of intellectual experiences to give sophomores a sense of academic empowerment" - whether this means creating sophomore seminars, increasing opportunities for undergraduate research or hiring new faculty.
Armstrong said he thinks the University has one of the best advising programs in the country, but there is still a lot of work to be done. "We are never complacent about advising," he said. "We always want to make it better."
