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Alumni Couple Publish Student Guides to Theses, Internships
by Catesby Holmes
Assistant Features
Two recent University graduates, now married, have found the secret to what students need. Nataly Kogan '98 and Avi Spivack '99 are the President and Managing Editor, respectively, of Natavi Guides, which publishes Students Helping Students, a series of guidebooks about various scholastic topics such as tackling theses, choosing a major, and finding internships. Written exclusively by students and recent graduates, Students Helping Students aims to briefly and directly give useful, tried-and-true advice on topics that matter to students.
Kogan stressed that the purpose of Students Helping Students guidebooks is to be succinct about one specific topic that may trouble students.
"It's no bullshit," Kogan said. "You sit down, you read this book on a certain subject, and you know what to do about it."
Kogan, a former CSS major, devised the basic idea for Students Helping Students while writing her own senior thesis. While she said that her thesis advisor was helpful in talking about the content of her thesis, Kogan felt that there was little guidance on how to structure such a long paper. She said she was confused about how to conduct research on a large scale and how to divide her work into chapters.
Kogan's husband, Spivack, who was at the time a junior at the University, said that she did not need to worry about her thesis as much as she did.
"She finished her thesis over winter break, and we spent spring break editing it," Spivack said.
Compared to most seniors, Kogan was significantly ahead of the game, and she received High and University Honors.
Kogan felt that she had learned from her experience and could help other students make the process less overwhelming. At the University, she said, she had found the advice of older students a helpful resource, but at bigger universities she worried that such students were not as accessible.
After completing her thesis, Kogan wrote a short paper about how she had managed the task and sent it to one of her professors. He copied it and distributed it to some students in the next senior class of CSS majors. Nearly a year later, Kogan encountered a recent graduate of the University that she had never met who recognized her name as that of the girl who had helped her get through her thesis.
Thus was born the first of Natavi's publications, "Conquering Your Undergraduate Thesis."
Kogan and Spivack, who married in 2001, soon started their own publishing company, Natavi Guides, and began distributing their first publication that same year. Though both still work day jobs in New York City, Natavi Guides has become a growing enterprise.
Since the beginning of the venture, the couple has published four more guides: "Fishing for a Major," "Scoring a Great Internship," "Tackling Your First College Paper" and "Getting the Most from Study Abroad", which were released just this fall. A dozen more guides, that target not only college students, but also high school students and recent graduates, are expected to be published within the next year.
Spivack said that their guides meet students' needs and come from a source they can trust and a format they can understand.
"It's the grand idea of peer wisdom," Spivack said, highlighting that only students know what students are going through, so they are in the best position to provide advice.
He also stressed that Natavi Guides address a certain topic in specific detail rather than a broad range of problems as other guides do.
"We want you to really get help in a specific case. The books break down into easy steps."
The website for Natavi Guides, www.studentshelpingstudents.com, reaffirms that the guides are meant to be utilized-heavily.
"Don't just read our guides," reads the page. "USE THEM to help you get where you're going. Write in them and on them, fold pages you find useful and refer to them later, carry them in your bag for good luck."
At roughly 100 pages or less, Natavi Guides' titles are concise and direct. Subsections within the guides include advice such as "Avoid Stomach Aches" and "Keep a Sense of Humor" to "Think About Your Reader" and "Be Proactive."
"They're all written in a very colloquial tone, with practical, punchy language, not trying to intimidate," Spivack said.
Many of the guides contain lined paper to take notes on while reading. All of them are full of quotations from students and recent graduates offering personal anecdotes and pointed advice on the subjects.
Recent writers of the guides have come from Wesleyan, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Columbia and Harvard. Although the authors tend to come from prestigious Northeastern universities, Kogan said that the guides' topics are applicable to students at all universities. They are in some ways aimed at students in larger, less selective universities who may not be as prepared for college as students who attend more prestigious schools.
Natavi Guides has sent their first five publications to university resource centers all around the country. According to Kogan and Spivack, the feedback from the guides has been very positive.
All five publications of Natavi Guides' Students Helping Students titles are available at Atticus Bookstore.
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