Reguli | June 11, 2010

"Advising Choices!"

Hi Class of 2014!

 

This was the first week of work for the three Orientation Coordinators; I just had a two-and-a-half week vacation from MIT, which was awesome! I spent the first couple of days in Northeast Harbor, Maine, enjoying time outside of a city. After that, I spent 6 days in Houston, and the remaining 5 days at home in Florida. I got to sleep a lot, see friends from high school, go sailing and running, and eat lots of home-cooked food. Overall, it was a great break!

 

Now Suzie, Chi Chi, and I are all hard at work for Orientation. Since today is the deadline for housing, FPOP's, and advising choices, I thought I'd address some FAQ's.

 

As most of you probably know, you have two choices with advising.  You can choose either traditional advising or an advising seminar.

In traditional advising, you will be assigned an advisor whom you will meet with at the start of each term to register for classes. They typically organize several outings for lunch or dinner to catch up on your activities and wellbeing at MIT, and they are available as a resource for any questions you might have. Also, a lot of times, you will also have an associate advisor, who is an upperclassman working with your advisor and you to give you advice and answer more questions. I might be a bit biased because I'm one, but typically they offer a good perspective on classes, professors, GIR's, dorms, etc. because they have experienced everything first-hand.

In an advising seminar, you will get the chance to explore a subject that you are interested in, and the faculty member leading the seminar will be your advisor for the entire year (even though your seminar only lasts one semester). You will meet with your advisor and the other freshmen in your seminar once a week and also have occasional individual meetings with your advisor to discuss your personal progress.

If you live in McCormick or Next House, you are automatically part of the RBA (Residence-Based Advising) system. You can still choose traditional or seminar-based advising, but the seminars that are available to you are limited only to those living in your residence hall.

 

More information about advising can be found here: http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2014/academics/index.html.

 

When I was in your footsteps two years ago, my top two housing choices were Baker and Simmons, so that ruled out RBA. I didn't find a seminar on a topic that I absolutely loved, which is why I chose traditional advising. Because I didn't find one that I was passionate about and I had already committed to playing a varsity sport (sailing) I didn't want to over commit, especially if I ended up not being happy with my seminar choice. However, simply because you do know that you will be on a varsity sports team doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't choose seminar advising, because it is doable to do both. The only thing you need to keep in mind when making this decision is the overall credit limit of 54 units that applies to all first-semester freshmen. Again, the above link to the Class of 2014 website has more details on this.

 

If you have any further last minute questions, please don't hesitate to call 617-253-6772 or email orientation-www@mit.edu or firstyear-www@mit.edu with any questions.

 

Hope you are enjoying summer :-)

The author has filed this entry in the "First-Year Academics" , "Residence Based Advising (RBA)" section; check it out for further reading on this topic.