"What I like
best about my job is the chance I get to watch students
transform, to see them discover whole new dimensions of
themselves."
Sandy Welter, Academic Adisor
The advising relationship is the heart of the Master’s
program. Since there is no prefabricated curriculum—no
set of courses that every student must take—students and
their advisors work together to design an education as rich
as they can collaboratively imagine. Through an ongoing conversation
with two advisors (a Skidmore faculty member and a MALS academic
advisor), students map out the intellectual territory they wish
to understand and choose a set of courses through which to explore
it. By thinking through these choices with their advisors, students
ensure that when they come to the end of their master’s
education, they have not simply finished a series of classes
but completed a unified course of study—a whole much greater
than the sum of its parts.
Each student works with their advisors to develop an academic
plan that chooses the courses the student will take and discusses
the reasoning behind each of these choices. These plans are
designed to be clear enough to give shape to the student’s
program of study, and flexible enough to let the student re-focus
their explorations in response to what they learn in their individual
courses. Students develop the first draft of their plans during
their first meeting with their faculty advisors, and often revise
them repeatedly as they progress through the program.
Creative Thought Matters.
Master of Arts Program
Skidmore College ·
815 North Broadway · Saratoga Springs, NY · 12866 mals@skidmore.edu · 518-580-5480
