Received: from osiris.Colorado.EDU (osiris.Colorado.EDU [128.138.151.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id MAA10993 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:22:48 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from glenn@localhost) by osiris.Colorado.EDU (8.6.11/8.6.9/CNS-3.5) id MAA28245; Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:22:47 -0600 Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:22:47 -0600 (MDT) From: "Glenn W. Muschert" To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: assigning pals to new grads In-Reply-To: <960724.125820.CDT.MMAUME@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Our department at the University of Colorado at Boulder does have this sort of system. We call it a "mentoring" system. Each in-coming grad student gets a 2nd year or above student who helps to answer their questions. Usually, we try to pair up students who seem to have similar interests. The effectiveness of this type of thing varies from case to case. Sometimes the pair builds a friendship, while other times they only meet together once or twice. I think it depends upon the individuals. In general, I think it's a good thing. We ask the "older" students to volunteer, and we usually have enough to accomadate the new students. This way only those experienced students who want to do it, will end up doing it. Glenn Muschert