First-Year Advising at Barnard
When I give tours, I’m often asked what’s unique about Barnard or why students should choose Barnard instead of somewhere else. Of course, there are a hundred ways that someone could answer this question. You could talk about Barnard’s location in New York City, its status as a women’s college, the small class sizes, the connections to Columbia, or the amazing professors. While I agree with these answers, one of my favorite things to talk about is the advising system, particularly the system set up for first-year students. While advising may not seem particularly exciting or a super compelling reason to choose Barnard, I think that the advising system in place speaks to the larger commitment that Barnard has to the community, first-years, and its students in general.
What makes these advisors unique is that they have all volunteered to advise first-year students. Advisors are not solely assigned based on the academic area of interest that you may have indicated on your application during high school, which means that not all advisors are professors. Instead, advisors come to the table with a whole host of different perspectives and experiences with Barnard. They can be anyone from a political science professor to the Dean of the College (fun fact, the Dean was one of my best friend’s advisors her first year!). What brings them together is their passion for helping first-years acclimate to college and making sure that they are academically prepared for all that college has to bring.
The summer before my freshman year I received an email alerting me that Patricia Keim, the Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Communications at Barnard, had been assigned as my advisor. As a busy woman with an important job, Patricia did not need to sign up to be a first-year advisor, let alone give me all of the time and attention that she did. Every time that I would meet with my advisor, which was at least twice a semester to plan courses for the current and next semester, she would clear at least an hour off her schedule to meet with me. Not only would we talk about my classes, but she was also interested to hear how my transition from high school to college was, what activities I was joining, and what my favorite things were to do in New York City. When I published my first article in the college newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, she sent me an email congratulating me on the accomplishment. When I told her I was applying to internships and needed a letter of recommendation, she gladly wrote one. In the spring of my freshman year, after inviting all of her advisees to an event that her office was sponsoring featuring Barnard authors, she took us and our friends out to dinner in the neighborhood to catch up.
After I declared my double major my sophomore year and received a new set of advisors – amazing professors from the respective departments that I would be studying in – Patricia continued to keep in touch. In September of my junior year, a year after she was no longer officially my advisor or required to keep up with me, I received an email from Patricia saying that she had a few tickets to go see former-Secretary of States Madeline Albright and Hillary Clinton speak at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and would I be interested in attending? Of course, I was.
When I give tours, I like to talk about my first-year advisor, because I do not think that my experience is unique or out of the ordinary. Advisors such as my own are committed to their students. They are committed to ensuring that we succeed in and out of the classroom and that our contributions to Barnard are valued.
These are people who are committed to the Barnard community and are just one of the many reasons why answering the “Why Barnard?” question is so easy.
-Jodi Lessner
Jodi is a senior at Barnard majoring in political science and history. In addition to working as a BSAR, Jodi is the president of the Columbia Mock Trial Team and an editor for the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review and the Columbia Political Review.