By Allison Mudge
Students often form study groups and friendships with others in their own major, based on common interests and shared classes. Soon, students who have yet to declare a major will have the same opportunities to learn with others who share similar interests, Provost Ahmed Abdelal said.
In the spring, the school will offer what Abdelal calls “somatic” learning communities. The focus will be on freshmen with undeclared majors, and will group them by broad common interests, he said.
“They can explore the area that appears most attractive to them and they can also get mentoring,” Abdelal said. “It’s also facilitating the process of deciding a major if you have not yet selected [one].”
The themes for the six learning communities will include humanities or social sciences, law, journalism or communications, the arts, psychology or sociology and the sciences.
Freshmen already have the option of participating in residential living/learning communities for students with common interests. These communities group students either by common traits such as honors or international students, or by major.
“An academic learning community could obviously also have a common residential experience, but that is not an essential feature,” Abdelal said. “In an academic learning community, the basic idea is to have students who already have decided what is the major they are interested in.”
Instead of enrolling in random English or math courses, freshmen with the same majors or interests are placed into courses together. They are taught an Introduction to College course by a faculty member from a major they are interested in.
“Also, we would have some opportunities for contact with each other and faculty members outside the classroom,” Abdelal said. “Students do learn from each other and so providing opportunities for that interaction in a regular way simply enhances their success in learning.”
Northeastern has already started offering learning communities, launching programs for freshmen with biology and political science majors this past fall.
“I do find it to be useful; it helps me relate to students in my major,” said Kimmie Banks, a freshman biology major and member of a learning community. “I’ve started to build academic relationships and friendships with students that are in my same classes.”
These relationships aid students in finding study partners and catching up on missed work.
“It also makes it a lot easier to find out about missed homework or what was going on in a class that was missed because you actually know some of the people in your class,” said biology major Allison Colbourne.
The fall learning communities were only open to students with Advanced Placement (AP) credit, or college credit received in high school courses. Students were given the option of participating during orientation.
“Initially, we plan for a certain number of people because we do know in advance who has AP credit and when they come to orientation they have the option of enrolling,” said Janeen Greene, an assistant in the biology department.
Amy Alberice, a member of a biology learning community, said she thinks the communities will benefit freshmen by fostering relationships, and recommends it to others.
“I’m not positive what I want to do with biology or if I want to stick with it and by talking to [people in my learning community] I can find out more about the chemistry or physical therapy majors than I could hear from an adviser,” she said.
Though Banks said she finds her learning community useful, she added it might be nice to only apply the community to core classes.
“You do want to meet people that are also in other majors,” she said.
Abdelal instituted a similar program as dean of arts and sciences at Georgia State University.
“The students in learning communities had higher retention rates than the ones who were not,” he said. “I feel reasonably confident based on my previous experience … that this is a model that does in fact keep students learning and retention rates high.”
The learning communities seem successful so far in fostering relationships among students with the same major, Banks said.
“It’s good to know that there’s someone else who’s going through what you’re going through and you can help each other out,” Banks said.
