First impressions are important. Simpson College is now making an important step in increasing interaction in freshmen Liberal Arts Seminars.

In the past the program has had only one student assistant. Under the new directorship of Sal Meyers, associate professor of psychology, the change has been implemented to increase this number to two.

It’s safe to say that a main goal of the program is to increase relationships between freshmen in an effort to keep those students satisfied with their Simpson Experience.

With an added assistant, the program will be adjusted so that each assistant is responsible for half of the class.

By adding another student assistant, LAS students will be able to foster closer relationships with their respective student assistants while maintaining close relationships with their freshmen classmates as well.

One possible problem to this added student assistant position is that it has the potential to divide the LAS classes within themselves, thus creating unnecessary friction between the class and smaller pockets of close friends.

While this added position seems like a positive first-step on behalf of the LAS program, perhaps it is necessary to look into other ways of balancing out the LAS load as well. The current distribution of advisees is by no means balanced, with some professors having as many as 40 different advisees while others can count their advisees on their fingers.

The LAS program means well but there is still a lot of room for improvement, as a large number of students leave their LAS class with nothing resembling a positive experience.