Your faculty adviser is someone who will take an interest in you, listen to you as you share your personal goals, and help you plan a course of study grounded in the liberal arts.
Your tutorial professor is your faculty adviser until you declare a major, typically in your fourth semester. If you are a transfer student, and you have met the Tutorial requirement, you are assigned an adviser in the department in which you have expressed an interest.
Advisers will encourage you to:
- Explore subject areas that will help you develop a range of academic skills
- Engage with subject areas that may challenge your beliefs and values
- Create an academic plan that relates to your personal and professional goals
- Participate in campus activities and events
- Be proactive in using the various resources on campus to support your academic, personal, and professional interests
- Celebrate your successes and find opportunities to thrive
You will also be assigned to a Careers, Life, and Service exploratory adviser who will help you explore ways to create and meet personal, civic, and career goals.
What’s my role as an advisee?
You should be actively engaged in developing your academic plan with your adviser. In secondary school, you likely received formulaic advice about how to be on a “college track” and may have had limited choices among your electives. At Grinnell, your faculty adviser will not direct you to a prescribed set of courses. Instead, you and your adviser will decide together what you will take each semester, guiding you toward an individualized program of study in the liberal arts.
Your faculty adviser will expect you to prepare thoughtfully for meetings, to look at a range of courses, and to reflect on various options. This means doing some initial background research yourself (how to do that comes in a later section).
To facilitate forming an advising relationship, complete the Advising Information Form available on the New Student Checklist. Your comments on the Advising Information Form will help your adviser understand your academic background and interests prior to your first meeting together. Be sure to complete this form by July 15.
What kind of conversation will I have with my adviser?
Think about these questions as you prepare to talk with your adviser in August:
- What academic subjects do you want to explore? Which might you explore first?
- What kinds of goals do you have — both immediate and long-term?
- How can you lay the groundwork and keep open several options for a major?
- What academic strengths do you feel you have?
- What personal or academic contexts — such as accommodations — should your adviser know about?
- What academic areas or skills do you want to develop?
- What areas of study are at Grinnell that you have never explored or considered?
- What does a liberal education look like for you?
Enter into conversations with your adviser about course planning with an open mind. You never know which class might change your life!