Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Katie Wong: Hi my name is Katie Wong and I'll be the Academic Director in Roble Hall.
Austin Lee: Hi, I'm Austin Lee and I'm the director of academic services here at Stanford
for student athletes.
Melissa Stevenson: Hi! I'm Melissa Stevenson.
Dayo Mitchell: Hi, I'm Dayo Mitchell.
Cari Kapur: My name's Cari Costanzo Kapur; I'm an Academic Director.
Raymond Chen: Hi! I'm Raymond Chen and I'm the Academic Director for Otero, Rinconada.
Soto and Trancos.
Solomon Hughes: Hi, my name is Solomon Hughes.
Hillary McKineey: Hi, I'm Hillary McKinney and I'm one of the academic advisors for student
athletes here on campus.
Alice Petty: Our pre-major advisors are faculty and specialist staff from throughout the university.
Cari Kapur: Academic Directors are all PhD-level academics and many of us also teach in our
own academic departments. So I'm trained as an Anthropologist and I do lecture in the
department of Anthropology.
Solomon Hughes: The AARC stands for Athletic Academic Resource Center.
Allison Vendt: There are 5 AARC advisors total. We all work with a select group of teams.
Each of us is actually a former student athlete so we work with the team in the sport that
we competed in in college as well as a group of other teams, and we each have about 180
student athletes that we work with.
Alice Petty: We have over 350 PMAs from over 100 programs and departments, and they are
all volunteers who step up because they are happy and eager to work with our incoming
frosh.
Cari Kapur: Academic Directors have offices in various complexes across campus to make
it easy for you to come and see us. So we work with a few hundred students each. My
particular houses are in Wilbur and also in Mirrielees and my office is located in Wilbur.
Cari Kapur: This week I'm involved in the coolest process which is reading all the freshman
files.
Alice Petty: Your AD reviews your Approaching Stanford paperwork and your robust letter
of intention and uses that information to find someone that they think is gonna be a
good fit for you.
Cari Kapur: I try to link you to a pre-major advisor who has similar interests. It may
not just be an intellectual interest; it might be that you're from the same hometown or you
both really like hiking or environmental issues. So it's your job to try to figure out why
I matched you to a particular pre-major advisor.
Alice Petty: Your pre-major advisor can help you make choices about your academic career,
especially in terms of how it relates to your goals and values.
Cari Kapur: You can bring any question to your Academic Director. Maybe you're really
attracted to the social sciences but you can't quite figure out what the difference is between
political science, sociology and urban studies. Or if you're
considering a pre-med track but you're trying to balance pre-med with going abroad and an
engineering major; we can help you think about how to design a four-year plan that will enable
you to do all those things: go abroad, have the major of your choice, even stay involved
in extracurricular activities.
Raymond Chen: Another thing that you're welcome to come to us for is anything sort of technical.
If you have questions about requirements or policies at Stanford, any forms that you have
to fill out through Undergraduate Advising and Research, we are an excellent resource
for that.
Allison Vendt: An AARC advisor is here to answer a number of different questions: anything
from questions about specific courses to exploring different majors, how to connect with faculty,
how to take advantage of some of the research opportunities on campus.
Alice Petty: Your pre-major advisor can help you reflect on your academic progress, can
help you connect with other faculty, researchers, scholars, other students, can help you plug
in to the Stanford network, which is such an important part of making the transition
from attending Stanford as an entering frosh to becoming a part of the Stanford community.
Solomon Hughes: In addition to the academic advising questions you can ask your PMA or
Academic Director, you can also reach out to your AARC advisor for questions specific
to your student athlete experience. Typically student athletes reach out their their AARC
advisor to talk about planning a course schedule that's conducive to their athletic endeavors.
Allison Vendt: If there's questions about conflicts that you may be having between class
times and practice times and how to navigate working your schedule around that, taking
exams on the road, if you have questions about maybe taking a leave of absence at some point
for personal reasons, academic reasons, athletic reasons.
Raymond Chen: Another question that students often have is how to connect with their professors
because that can be a little bit intimidating. So our ADs are very good at figuring out who
you might want to talk to, who you're interested in, and a good way to approach them so that
you can start to build these relationships.
Alice Petty: Your pre-major advisor is someone who is likely to go that extra mile to help
find you the answers that you're looking for, to help you connect with resources, or people,
or opportunities, or support, or whatever it is that you are looking for, whatever it
is that you need to have the most successful, rewarding experience here at Stanford.
Cari Kapur: You don't have to know exactly what you want to major in, or what class you
want to take, or what you want to be when you "grow up" when you come talk to your Academic
Director. You can come and have a whole host of ideas, you can be sort of lost and not
sure exactly what your academic path is, and our job is to help you think through all the
questions you're having about what your future at Stanford looks like. So don't feel you
have to have it all worked out - we can work it out together.
Alice Petty: Take care of yourself! Wash your hands a lot and get enough sleep! Because
if you're sick, you'll be so sad.
Cari Kapur: I have two pieces of advice for all of our freshmen: eat well and exercise.
The quarter system feels like a ten week intellectual sprint and if you aren't finding a way to
stay healthy on the side - go to the gym, go to a yoga class, take a jog around Roble
field, and when you go into the dining hall, choose some fruit and vegetables! Really,
eat well and exercise, and sleep well, too.
Raymond Chen: So get involved when you're at Stanford! Explore things that you've never
tried before. And learn a little bit more about yourself. And make sure to have fun!