“We have so many undergraduates; if they assigned us all undergraduates it would just be a lot of people,” says Economics Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) Samuel B. Thompson.

Faced with the sheer volume of concentrators, the departments have looked to offices where they can offer mass advising efficiently. Students walk in and speak with graduate student staffers without an appointment, but often trade availability for long-term advising relationships.

Thompson says that graduate students can be better resources for students. “We’re happy if undergraduates talk to us, faculty, but a lot of times undergraduate questions are about classes, and for that, the graduate student advisers are much better,” he says.

Highlighting the problems faced by larger concentrations, Pilbeam notes that biological anthropology, one wing of the 120-concentrator Anthropology Department, manages with one head tutor. Based on those numbers, economics would need seven head tutors and government would need five. But they each have only one.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Concentration advising tends to occur primarily in two forms: providing answers to fact-based questions, usually about requirements, and more extensive advising about broad areas of interest or future plans.

But according to students in large departments, advising in those concentrations rarely extends beyond the most cursory issues.

“Advising is probably the worst aspect of the Gov department,” says Aguilar. “Whenever I’ve gone in [to the tutorial office], they either do not know or expect to sign a form, but having somebody who’s just kind of sitting there waiting to answer your questions is not advising.”

The nature of walk-in advising—you get your information and go—does not allow students to develop a close relationship with one adviser, says economics concentrator Andrei Pesic ’07.

And Pesic’s experience in the department seems far from unique.

“It’s a joke, it doesn’t exist, it’s stupid to say there’s concentration advising,” says economics concentrator Griffin E. Schroeder ’05.

Concentrators appreciate the office’s availability, but the experience seems incomplete. Pesic says while his basic needs for course advice are fulfilled, the advising does not extend much beyond that into his broader areas of interest.

“I think that’s sort of a missed opportunity that I think they could take advantage of, and would make the undergraduate experience better,” Pesic says.

These problems are often compounded by a lack of preparation and reaching out on the part of both students and professors.

“The under-utilized part of advising in the department is for students just to bang on their professor’s door,” Donoghue argues.