Advice on advising

I have always been jealous of those students who have developed relationships with their advisers, who are never hesitant to send a question, whose conversations range beyond academics and requirements, whose meetings last whole hours. For me, that’s never been the case. My meetings were always scheduled through WASS, 15-minute allotments to initial my course enrollment sheet or spot check my regression model. I’ve had four advisers and never once spoken of something non-academic. Our relationships were not only confined to those scheduled minutes — neither of us, I’m sure, even thought of the other aside from those required meetings — but also strictly to the project at hand, whether it be my junior paper or my spring courses.

I always wanted a deeper relationship, something akin to my high school adviser, who kept up with all aspects of my academic life while also asking how the weekend’s Mock Trial tournament had gone, coming to see me in the school play or sticking a card to my locker on my birthday. For her, too, the explicit premise of the job was merely to oversee my schoolwork and contact a higher power if I was screwing up (then my parents; here, I presume, my Director of Stuent Life or College Master), but she interpreted her role in my life to be much more supportive and all encompassing than the one assigned.

The environment of high school likely contributes quite a bit to the difference. I saw my adviser twice a week in our 15-minute homeroom meetings, but I also had her for English four times a week and saw her in the halls countless times, and we both felt deeply involved in the shared community of my school. Here, I share almost nothing with my advisers. Freshman and sophomore year, it’s only an attempted match in our potential field of study; for independent work, a slight overlap in our area of research. With so little in common, and no shared community, it’s understandable why so few advising pairings launch from sterile, academic planning to true relationships.

Advising here is just too hit-or-miss in that regard. Perhaps you loved your residential college or joined a small department and you found a surrogate, more effective, system of advising there. But from the conversations I have had, it seems this is not the general consensus. One way the University might combat this is through the eating clubs, or organizations with similar reach and commitment from its members. I have been part of many an organization on campus. From religious groups, to club sports, to USG, my attempted engagements run a pretty wide spectrum. And, for me, none have been as successful in creating a community of mentorship and support as my eating club. From assistance on problem sets, to advice on internships or how to ask for a recommendation, I have turned to the members of Tower, not just because I feel they are more invested in my well-being than any other resource, adviser or community I had on campus, but also because I didn’t feel encouraged or able to reach out to those other sources.

I know dozens of other students who feel this way toward their club — and others who feel that way toward other campus organizations, though a smaller bunch. Yes, the eating clubs are a social institution, but I think it is often forgotten what a strong and important community they create for their members. It seems to me, that if the University could get on board, there might be a way to strengthen the advising system by linking it to this community. If a few professors, representing the different academic disciplines, affiliated with each club, the creation of a shared community might help foster more meaningful advising relationships.

Through hosted dinners or discussions, afternoon teas or happy hours, members could be exposed to and gain familiarity with the professor from their department, who represents a discipline closest to theirs. This could lead to more informal questioning and advising, especially useful to juniors and seniors — who, if their independent work adviser doesn’t take an interest in or feel compelled to advise their academics and life beyond independent work, have no generic adviser during half of their Princeton experience. The club involvement would even better encourage such a relationship because it would not be expressly for JPs, theses or course approval, but simply for advising a community of people in general.

This, too, could be easily implemented with a co-op, for upperclassmen in the residential colleges and — with a bit of extra planning — for independent students, so as not to be limited to students within the eating clubs. It’s about creating a greater shared community by engaging with students through their eating option, whatever that is. It’s not the perfect solution, and not the only solution, but such a system would be a nice complement to the existing advising system, which is simply just too hit-or-miss.

Lily Alberts is an economics major from Nashville, Tenn. She can be reached at lalberts@princeton.edu.