Engineering frosh eat, get advised

Engineering freshman, peer advisors and faculty can dine in style this week as the School of Engineering and Applied Science prepares students for the upcoming Advanced Registration period. In a program that began Monday night with a computer science dinner and will continue through October 28, each Engineering department is hosting dinners for freshmen in their fields. Freshmen who have not yet declared a major are invited to attend any and all dinners held by departments with majors that interest them, Assistant Director of Student Affairs Katherine Becht said. Also, dual degree students may attend dinners for each of their departments, while Management and Technology students may go to the dinner of their engineering major, Becht added. Event organizers, the Engineering Peer Advising Council and the Office of Academic Programs, hope it will make the selection process for next semester's courses easier. EPAC Director and Engineering senior Karen Levi said many freshmen don't feel comfortable attending office hours to ask questions. The dinners will provide them with an opportunity to meet their professors in an informal setting. "A student who attends the dinner will have a name and a face to go to for guidance," Becht said. "He or she will not have to rely only on the books." Upperclassmen and administrators will be on hand to offer advice as well. Although the Engineering School has offered these dinners for the past three years, this is the first time that the event is taking place outside of Stouffer Dining Commons, Levi said. "At Stouffer, there was the noise of everything else going on around us," Levi said. "It was not as intimate a setting as we hope to have now." With the change of locations comes a move away from dining hall food, as well as a theme for each dinner based on an original menu. Freshmen were informed of the dinners via e-mail and were instructed to RSVP to the peer advising director of each department's dinner. According to Levi, the feedback has been positive so far. "Freshmen realize that it will be really beneficial for them to begin looking around at this time," she said.