first-year experiences at the mid point

Whistle_Pig
Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:19:50 +0000

Ours has had much the same experiences …virtually all positive with several notable exceptions. Had a psych class that the prof, who obviously has a fixaton on gay and racial issues, turned the class into those issues. She did well, but the class was defiinitely not as advertised. This is a chronic issue on many campuses.

I don’t buy the ho-hum advisor issue. Not with a price tag of $45K/annum, whatever the FA. That’s one of the points that Denison profs argued in lobbying to teach fewer classes over the past several years. Need to do more serious advising. And I’d argue the point that students need and merit the most serious advising when they are novice students. By the time they’re majoring, they should know quite well what they need, want, and much more about the professors, teaching styles, etc. I don’t buy that one second. That’s one of the very things campuses like DU sell to prospective students, and I’m not inclined to give them any pass at all. That’s one of the Freshman Dean’s jobs, i.e. to ensure thorough academic advisiing. Students and their paying parents should embrace a far more aggressive consumer mentality, imo. Lastly, the academic advising is so inconsistent with the extraordinary attention to individuals by the admission staff in the recruitment process.

Furthermore, DU exacerbates this by allowing students to advise incoming freshmen in their initial course selection in June-O. Also, she has a language course continued but they refused to allow the same prof, which seems nuts to us. These issues and the obvious lack of student spaces in even intro courses are the only 3 major issues we’ve observed. And these noted, our student loves it, and is so thrilled, especially noting how many friends seemed so unhappy and/or dissatisfied when they all reconnected over the holidays.