Harvard Rejects Engineering Plan

Moves by the George Washington University School of Engineering to abolish classification by year and to extend complete educational freedom to its students have stimulated Faculty interest here. Harvey Brooks, Dean of Engineering and Applied Physics, calls the new plans "very novel."

Instead of the traditional designations of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, the GWU school (located in Washington D.C.) will divide its students by their individual accomplishments.

Move at Own Pace

The students will be able to move at their own pace, selecting appropriate goals and standards. Faculty advisers will merely maintain a check on the students, orienting them in a general direction.

This is not extremely different, according to Brooks, from Harvard's present system. The Engineering School here, like the College, allows students to take whatever courses they are prepared for.

Brooks did add, however, that Harvard does not emphasize the type of individual supervision which the GWU plan will incorporate. He feels that the needs of engineering make a course structure necessary, and that engineering students must work within a flexible but nonetheless prescribed framework.

The Harvard Engineering school itself does not have any tutorial plan, although there is an accelerated non-credit tutorial for honors students. Brooks held that the University's present course structure barely prepares engineers in four years, without the problem of further acceleration.