"Students are often the best source of advice, but first-years are sometimes not sure where to turn," Bi said. "Participating in a Sib relationship makes the process of finding a mentor more convenient and friendly."

The Women in Math Club and Undergraduate Math Club are both in the process of developing new one-on-one mentoring programs aimed at helping first-years choose courses and becoming familiar with the concentration.

"It was nice to be able to have someone older as a mentor. And when you get older its nice to relay the hard-earned wisdom and for people to learn from your successes and failures," said Anne-Marie Oreskovich '99, president of the Women in Math and co-president of the undergraduate Math Club.

"Most math majors get a sense about which classes to take from talking with their peers," said Samit Dasgupta, co-president of the Math Club.

The Women in Math and Math Club programs aim to create a more formalized process for disseminating the advice that math concentrators already seek from each other, Dasgupta said.

The Psychology Department started a peer counselors program this year to help prospective and current concentrators get a student's-eye-view of the concentration.

"We aren't supposed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the department's requirements," said Frank J. Farach '00, peer counselor in psychology.

The peer counselors give a more personal opinion of the classes than just the nuts-and-bolts advice offered by Faculty advisers, Farach said.

Advise at Your Own Risk

Faculty and Administrators say they see no problem with students getting advice from fellow undergraduates, but they stress that students should not rely on the advice of peers.

"I would not want this kind of peer advising formalized," Harry R. Lewis '68, dean of the college, writes in an e-mail message. "For one thing, the institution really has to take responsibility for the advice it gives."

For example, he warned, trusting student advice on concentration requirements could have disastrous results.

"If someone advises a student that he or she really doesn't need to take a particular course because the department will waive that requirement, and that turns out not to be the case, then the student's very graduation has been put at risk," he writes.

Other departments stress that they do not encourage peer advising.

"Advising is done here exclusively by qualified people with math department appointments," said Cliff H. Taubes, head tutor in the Mathematics Department. "It would hardly be ethical to do otherwise. The Math Club has no advising duties as far as the department is concerned."