Academic Advising at Carthage

Advising for First-Year Students

First-year advisors are full-time professionals who offer comprehensive services and provide support to all freshmen. Professional advisors help students enhance academic potential, improve interpersonal relationships, increase self-understanding, and explore vocational and educational goals. Advisors are responsible for each student's academic advising needs and are available for counseling in all areas of college life.

Sophomores, juniors and seniors are advised by a faculty member in their major. Freshmen who have declared a major are moved to faculty advisors over the course of their freshman year.

Along with the scheduling of classes, advisors help students improve the quality of their academic performance. They discuss with students the role of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and work with students to create long-term academic and career plans.

First-year advisors are located on the lower level of Madrigrano Residence Hall.

First Year Transition

Vincent Tinto, '93, outlined three stages students move through in their first year of college. These stages are: separation, transition and incorporation.

Separation Stage
The experience of moving away from the familiar environment of home. For some students, this process can be quite traumatic. Students can become very homesick in this stage. Students may continually contact home and friends. They have a desire to come home and are reluctant to return to school. This stage can be longer and more severe for some students than others. It is important that students get support and patience as they work through this stage. Although this stage can be difficult for students, most eventually are able to move to the second stage, transition.

Transition Stage
Students are torn between their old environment and the new one. They may not feel like they belong in their old environments, but they have yet to find their places in the new one. Students may come home for a break and realize they have changed. Students may realize that their friends have changed, as well. This stage can help students become prepared for the last stage, incorporation.

Incorporation Stage
In this stage, students develop full membership into the social and academic communities of the institution. Students become invested into the school. They develop close ties with other students and may become reluctant to go home.

Students may move backward and forward through these stages, depending on the events in their lives. But once they achieve the incorporation stage, they are unlikely to digress in the other stages for very long.