THE FACULTY ADVISER

The words of a member of the class of 1927, reprinted from the first report of the class, place heavy but correct fingers on a weak part of that miraculous machinery which makes a youth into a Sophomore. Honest and broad as are the efforts of University Hall to give Freshmen an complete survey of available fields of concentration, the result is spotty. Practise has proven that neither the most lively lecturer, nor the traditional head of a department, nor the actual head of a department is necessarily the most expert summarizer of the work to which his life is dedicated. The garnerings of the Freshman's six months of querying among upperclassmen are bound to be haphazard. Of such shreds and patches, however, are conclusions' made.

The feeling is general that the Freshman advisory system has not realized all its potentialities. Sometimes the adviser, in spite of comprehensive reference sheets sent him from University Hall, is insufficiently informed. More than a little difficulty lies in the overlapping duties of the adviser, who may be also a section man in Harvard, a lecturer in Radcliffe, a tutor or a graduate student. Interviews more distinguished for epigrammatic than informative quality are the result.

The remedial measure suggested in the Class of 1927 report is impractical. It collides with the difficulties of congestion, even more abruptly than the present system: the adviser would be compelled to give lengthy and comprehensive conferences in the spring, when he is either correcting final theses, preparing groups of Seniors for divisional, or working on the study card conferences of Sophomores and Juniors. Two fifteen-minute conferences separated by and interval of six months give negligible returns in mutual acquaintance. The solution, then, seems to lie in an increase of advisory conferences.

Such change, would impose no great extra burden on the student's time, who must be prepared for the demands of the imminent tutorial system. The burden that spring brings to the adviser would thus be eased. Such, losses of time as result from a field of concentration changed in the Sophomore or Junior year would be minimized. Final selection in April would be the result of developed understanding of what Harvard College offers the thought-hungry. There seems no reason why the class of 1932 should be subject to methods of faculty advising so variant in quality as those in present use.