ADVISE THE FRESHMEN

With the increasing emphasis on the tutorial system the gap between Freshman and Sophomore is being steadily widened. Emphasis during the first year is on individual course work with little or no attempt at correlation and the student enters on his Sophomore career with only the vaguest understanding of the purpose and importance of the tutorial system and the function of concentration and distribution. To enable one to pass immediately into upperclass life an introduction to the tutorial system in modified form should be made during the Freshman year.

A strengthening of the Freshman advisory system would go a long way toward the accomplishment of this purpose. At present many advisers are professors otherwise engaged, chiefly interested in advanced scholastic work, and unable to give their advisees sufficient time. They are often men unconnected in any way with Freshman life and hence unable to understand its problems.

The Freshman would benefit greatly if the position of Adviser were put on a modified basis comparable with that of the tutor and more than the merely perfunctory relations between adviser and advisee existing at the present time were established. Men would advance into the Sophomore class knowing more definitely and on better authority what field of concentration they wish to-enter. And by early realizing the ultimate importance of the general examinations would be better able to direct their energies toward that goal.

Personal contact with individual members of the Freshman Class would allow the University the flexibility so essential during the first college year. The Freshman tutor gauging the maturity of his men could give the advanced a free rein and at the same time bring those less mature to a point where they too would be ready for emancipation. A link would thus be made between the schools and the colleges and the problems of adjustment would at least find partial solution. In addition the adviser should help the student to form a standard of values in regard to extra-curricular activity and social matters which he might never work out for himself or which he might delay until much of its value was lost. Increased emphasis on the function of the adviser may serve to gather together the loose ends of the Freshman year.