As a senior, you’ve likely wondered about life after college—jumping into the job market or pursuing grad school or law school. Remember the simplicity of freshman year, when you had a navigator to guide you? I think that having a senior navigator could be a great way to help seniors decide what to do beyond graduation.

What would this senior navigator do? Who would it be? In my mind, I envision the Senior navigator to be a faculty member who ideally would be in your major, or at least be someone who knew of opportunities that would pertain to you. The senior navigator would function pretty much like the freshman navigator; they could email you a couple of times a week, and if you had any questions, they could get in touch with the proper channels to help you out.

Zac Sibbit, a senior accounting major, agreed with the idea.

“Yeah, if it was a faculty member that got in touch with us, I believe that would be very helpful for students,” Sibbit said.

A problem I see that could arise from this is if we use members of faculty, they could be too busy to be able to email back and forth with students.

A possible answer to this problem would be putting the responsibility of reaching out to your senior navigator on the students themselves, rather than on faculty. This would ensure that these members of staff would be able to do their jobs and meet with students.

Graduate students as Senior navigators is another approach that came to mind. If there is a student who is certain they would like to do the MBA program, then they would be assigned an MBA student who could help out in this regard, and so on.

According to an article by Hannah Pajtis in the student newspaper Hawk, having someone to talk to can relieve stress from the college experience.

“Another recommendation for overwhelmed college students is to set up an appointment with their advisor,” Pajtis said in the article. “Hearing the perspective of a professional with real-world experience can help individuals relieve their anxiety and feel grounded. Advisors can also provide students with relevant career advice and help them plan their academic schedules. As someone who likes planning ahead, meetings with my advisor has increased my certainty about my career aspirations and helped me stay organized.”

A question that could arise is why senior navigators are needed when academic advisors are already there. I believe that the senior navigators would give a student a more human connection, instead of just talking about schedules and what have you.

This idea is mainly based on the enormous pressures that college students face, but having someone to talk to about your future is exactly what I want for my fellow students. I have loved being in the English department and having members of faculty to help me when I am feeling lost or unsure of what I want to do with my life. I believe this idea of a senior navigator could be especially useful for students who may have difficulties talking about their issues in person, or just students who are too busy with other obligations to meet in person.