Recognizing Signs of Stress
Some signals that an advisee is under stress are obvious, e.g., the student receives a fifth week flag in one or more subjects, stops coming to your seminar meetings or falls asleep during the seminar! Perhaps your advisee fails to respond to e-mail. Others are less obvious, maybe manifesting as a failure to engage with their schoolwork, apathy, etc.
Help Your Students Help Themselves
Early intervention will get positive results! TAs, faculty, and tutors are all available to help. If you have a student who is homesick, or appears depressed, now is the time to refer him or her to help and counseling.
Academic Problems
Encourage advisees to get the services they need. Their instructors and/or Teaching Assistants are generally the best resources for help with a particular subject. Other important resources include subject review sessions and/or departmental tutoring. If you want to be in direct contact with the student's teachers or TAs, please see the list of this semester's Freshman Lecturers.
Time Management and Study Skills
Many freshmen run into academic problems because they lack experience in managing all aspects of their lives. This typically includes poor time management and organizational skills. Some have never really had to study hard and therefore have not developed good work and study habits. Help is available: refer your advisees to the Learning to Learn site for tips, tools, advice and resources.
Personal Problems or Extenuating Circumstances
Sometimes students are unable to focus on schoolwork because of personal mental health issues like depression, illness, serious interpersonal problems (roommates, new or failing romances), or a family crisis (death, divorce, illness). The staff of the Student Support Services Office offers general help to students in distress, including, but not limited to, individual counseling. In addition, the Mental Health Service at MIT Medical offers support groups for students which try to help them adjust to life at MIT.
See the Resources section of the Class of 2013 site for more information.
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