Freshman Advisers and the Fall Quarter Seminar

If you are a freshman in Weinberg College, your main source of academic advising will probably be your Freshman Adviser. Each year about seventy faculty members agree to help steer fifteen or sixteen Weinberg College students each through their first year at Northwestern. Freshman Advisers hold at least five meetings with each student: group and individual meetings during New Student Week to discuss academic plans and to block out a program of study for fall quarter, and individual meetings late in the fall, winter, and spring quarters to discuss and approve your schedule for the next quarter. Freshman Advisers are also available throughout the school year to talk about how things are going in your classes, about decisions for the future, and about any other academic issues that arise. If you have any questions related to your academic program and performance at Northwestern, contacting your Freshman Adviser is a good place to start.

Unless you are in one of the special programs that follows a different plan (the 5-year BA/BMusic program, HPME, ISP, or MMSS), your Freshman Adviser will also teach your fall quarter Freshman Seminar. That means you will be seeing your adviser in class weekly throughout fall quarter. Students in the four special programs have freshman advisers with special expertise related to their particular programs, and they typically do not take a Freshman Seminar during the first term of their freshman year.

Each Freshman Adviser's group of advisees is also assigned a Peer Adviser. Peer Advisers are upperclassmen selected for their knowledge of the university and their commitment to helping new students. Your Peer Adviser will be another important resource for you during New Student Week as you finalize your fall quarter plans.