As a student at Mississippi State University and at any school, finding assistance in the classroom as well as adjusting to college life as a freshman can present its challenges. In light of these challenges, MSU kick-started the use of Freshman Navigators last fall, along with the introduction of the new Supplemental Instruction sessions this semester.
What is Supplemental Instruction (SI)?
This semester, Supplemental Instruction (SI) features students who have done well in classes that have high failure rates to hold informative sessions for students who need assistance in those courses.
Rodney Pearson, director of student success at MSU, said SI differs from freshman navigators in that for SI, 20 students were hired to consult with professors of 21 different courses and hold tutoring and outside help specific to those courses.
“This semester, we try to identify classes in which a lot of students fail, make a D, or withdraw,” Pearson said. “We call them DFW classes. It’s going to be classes like chemistry, biology, college algebra. In those classes, we have 21 sections this fall that we hire a student who has done very well in that class to go to the class. Then three times a week they hold supplemental instructions (SI) for students to go to.”
Reportedly, a total of 627 students have attended SI sessions so far this semester, with students having attended the sessions a total of 1,542 times. Pearson said they are keeping up with numbers to record just how successful these sections actually are.
“The 20 students who lead SI report their attendance in a web-based form we have,” he said. “We see 300 or so students per week going to these sessions. We are hoping these are students who weren’t going to do that well so hopefully they will do better. We’ve had about 16.3 percent of the freshmen class attend so far.”
Chelsey Vincent, instructor coordinator and SI coordinator said the new program recently had its highest turnout of 122 students for an SI Chemistry session Wednesday night.
“SI is for everyone,” Vincent said. “It’s for students who want to excel and improve their grades and GPA.”
Shuvam Saha, sophomore aerospace engineering major and Chemistry SI leader this semester, said Wednesday night’s session had so many people attend, some had to sit on the floor.
“Wednesday night was like a discussion where we had a question and answer session and allowed people to ask questions and review with peers,” Saha said. “Because we actually know what’s going on in these classes we use that information to really help students. Sometimes the professor doesn’t have enough time to explain everything and so since we have already taken the course we know which parts we can go into detail about to help students understand.”
For specific courses, times and locations SI is offered, visit http://www.tlc.msstate.edu/tutoring/supplemental/. 
So what is a Freshman Navigator?
 Kick-started in the fall semester of 2014, Freshman navigators are specifically assigned to freshmen to answer common questions, provide tips and help them “navigate” through a first year at MSU.
Katherine Cagel, junior accounting major and second-year navigator, said navigators had a rough start last fall semester in light of it being a new program, but this year, more students are reaching out and utilizing the program.
“We as navigators provide general information, rather than classwork knowledge,” Cagle said. “Students contact us about how to get around in Starkville and at this time of year, are contacting us for feedback on ways they can their grades and boost their GPA.”
Cagle said navigators also provide students with feedback on study tips in regards to personal experiences and like to think of themselves as the liaison between professors and students.
“Each freshman is assigned a navigator,” she said. “We send two or three weekly emails to all freshmen.”
John Williams, senior business information systems major and second-year freshman navigator as well, said since beginning the program for freshmen last fall, they have experienced a great amount of success this semester.
“It’s tremendously easier for us to interact with students this year because we’ve done a lot more promoting for freshman navigators this summer,” Williams said. “We are trying to get students to understand what we are here for. We are really here to help students.”
Through working with freshmen he is assigned to this semester, Williams said he has received questions about how to obtain veteran aid, community service opportunities and general questions regarding getting involved on campus.
“Students should take advantage of this program,” he said. “We are literally like an open book for students to ask questions and receive answers.”
To find out who your freshman navigator is and how to contact them, visit freshman.msstate.edu, click on “Who’s my navigator” and log in using MSU Net ID and password. 
What specifically is the difference between SI and Navigators again?
Kick-started this semester, Supplemental Instruction (SI) sessions assists students in 21 specific courses that typically has the highest failure rates. 20 students who have taken these courses and done well in them are hired to lead these sessions for students, and work directly with teachers of these classes to ensure the outside help provided to students matches what is going on in the classroom.
In the fall of 2014, freshman navigators was started in which around 24 students were selected and assigned a number of freshmen to assist and help throughout their freshman year (students selected as Freshman Navigators aren’t necessarily required to be Grade-A students ). Navigators don’t focus on tutoring students in classwork, but rather offer insight, advice and suggestions on being a student and/or information regarding campus/off campus resources.
Editor’s Note: In the original article, Rodney Pearson was quoted saying 1.7 percent of the freshmen class had attended SI sessions so far this semester. With a freshman class of 3,471, 16.3 percent of freshmen have attended SI sessions so far this semester. The Reflector regrets this error.