Guides on the undergraduate quest
Caleb Thompson ’14 came to Harvard with an open mind. He left his home in the United Kingdom for a liberal arts education that would give him the freedom to explore the humanities: history, philosophy, literature, and more. When he arrived in Cambridge, however, he was overwhelmed by the thousands of classes offered to Harvard undergraduates. So he looked to his new freshman adviser for help sorting through the options. “My adviser understood me,” Thompson said. “Within the first two or three times that we met, she understood what I might like to take and steered me to a poetry class given by Professor Helen Vendler, the most exceptional lecturer I’ve ever heard. Now I’m thinking of concentrating in English or in the classics.” Harvard’s advising programs enable students like Thompson to get more from their undergraduate academic experience. Adela Penagos, now in her second year as associate dean of the Advising...