Students and faculty in the social sciences division—which houses the two largest concentrations, economics and government—point to a divide in the strength of the advising students receive.

As the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has almost doubled in undergraduate enrollment since 2008, the rapidly growing school has maintained a firm commitment to intimate, faculty-led advising.

Dean of Freshman Thomas A. Dingman ’67 received the first Freshman Advising Award at the Teaching and Advising Awards Dinner co-hosted by the Undergraduate Council and the Advising Programs Office on Wednesday evening.

Advising Fortnight began this evening with a kick-off event in Annenberg. The next two weeks promise a plethora of events catered to (and catered for) freshman eager for wisdom about concentrations (and cupcakes). With pithy, often alliterative, food-oriented titles, the department workshops are aimed to help freshmen gauge their academic interests. Acknowledging the overstimulated and chronically indecisive nature of this generation, Flyby makes the concentration decision easy. Just go for the food.

Advising Fortnight began on Monday night with a kickoff event in Annenberg Hall. Representatives from every academic department at Harvard engaged them in conversations regarding their future studies.

Future government concentrators will benefit from a strengthened advising program that will pair faculty members with undergraduates, following a set of reforms unanimously approved by the department faculty last Thursday.

The newest pre-concentration advising project developed by the Advising Programs Office and the Freshman Dean’s Office, the Advising Corner seeks to make concentration advice more accessible to freshmen.

Some special concentrators combine two distinct fields, like Biology and International Policy, to create an integrated plan of study. But most use the special concentration program as a route to a more conventional major not offered at Harvard, like theater, urban planning, or architecture.