New Ec Question Center Looks To Attract Students

UPDATED: April 14, 2015, at 9:33 p.m. 

The new Economics Question Center, designed to serve as a central hub for tutoring in foundational economics courses, is still ramping up operations after its launch on Sunday.

Modeled in part after the Mathematics Question Center, which offers tutoring for select courses Sunday through Thursday evenings, the EQC will serve as both a resource for students with questions about their problem sets and a place for Economics concentrators to convene, according to the professor and student tutors behind the project.

“One of the main goals…[is to] try to create a central home for the undergraduates in the Economics Department,” concentration adviser Jane L. Herr said. “It’s a big department. Because it’s so big, the student body is much more varied, and I think some students feel like they can get lost.”

Once the EQC is up and running, attending tutoring sessions could become an important part of being an undergraduate in the department, Herr said.

On Sunday night, no students in need of tutoring showed up, according to Herr. And on Monday night around 8 p.m., only three students sat in the Littauer M-42 classroom—all of them student tutors.

“We haven’t had much time to get word around,” tutor Sabrina N. Bukenya ’16 said. “I definitely feel that this could be a great resource for Ec concentrators.”

With the EQC in its early stages, the founders plan to use the remaining portion of the semester to work through potential challenges, Herr said. “We’re aware that we’re starting very late in the semester...with the hope of, next year, that we get a running start at the very beginning of the semester,” she said.

In addition to creating a space for economics concentrators to ask questions and receive help, another motivation for creating the EQC was a shortage of designated economics tutors at the Bureau of Study Counsel, according to tutor Trent A. Nelson ’16, one of the founders of the EQC.

“The impetus for this was because [of] the lack of tutors at the BSC...I think [there’s a need] to reach out directly to those kids who are waiting or who have been wanting tutors,” Nelson said. “Clearly, there’s a demand there.”

Herr also said the BSC provides students with a different kind of tutoring than the type which will occur at the EQC. While the BSC has weekly, one-on-one sessions between students and tutors, the EQC may offer more flexibility to students who may or may not have specific questions on their problem sets, Herr said.

“What’s really nice about the MQC—and what we’re hoping we’re going to create, too—is that this is drop-in, ‘it’s there if I need it,’ kind of environment,” she said.

—Staff writer Melissa C. Rodman can be reached at melissa.rodman@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @melissa_rodman.