Fun in the Sun

Harvard Summer School Catalog: The Official Register of Harvard University Harvard University Press; 160 Pages; Free

IN HIS BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS less than a month ago, President Bok warned the graduating class of 1985 about the dangers of pre-professionalism, condemned graduate schools and urged students to pursue knowledge of ethical values, rather than professional ones.

It's a good thing Bok doesn't go to Harvard summer school.

For if he did, he might have to take such unethical courses as ECON S-1330: Math for Economists; or SPAN S-P: Spanish for Business; or even CREA S-165: Writing Grant Proposals.

For they are just a few of the highly specialized and pre-professional courses available this year from the Harvard Summer School Catalog, the summer Harvardian's official introduction to all that is Harvard between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox.

In fact, if you want to learn more about just the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, there's probably a summer school course which will teach it to you.

In addition to being pre-professional, many summer school courses will give you an intricate knowledge of the most specialized subjects under the Cambridge sun. Take for example the fact that there are six different courses offered this summer in Ukrainian (the University offers only nine courses during the regular school year in Ukrainian).

To complement your knowledge of Ukrainian, you can take Harvard's only summer offering in Turkic: TURK S-190: Ottoman Palaeography, which "involves intensive reading of the Siyaqat and Diwani Ottoman texts." Ownership of the Siyaqat and Diwani Ottoman texts is probably not a prerequisite of the course, but knowledge of both elementary Turkish and Ottoman is.

Even more ridiculous is BIOL S-173: Laboratory in Transmission Electron Microscopy and Immunocytochemistry. To make things clearer to the lay transmission electron microscopist, the course description says "special attention will be placed on ultrastructural immunocytochemistry." Luckily, no auditors will be permitted.

Those with a keen interest in the development of palm trees would ordinarily be able to take BIOL S-105: Plants of the Tropics, but for some curious reason, the course is bracketed (i.e. offered in 1986, but not this year). Presumably, coconut and pineapple horticulturists will make plans to take the course at summer school next year.

For those hell-bent on going pre-professional at a school other than Harvard, Harvard's best cocktail party conversation course can be gotten out of the way in only 8 weeks. Indeed FNAR S-13e zips you through one century of Western art every five days, allowing you to get back to the more serious professional pursuits of organic chemistry and business economics.

And if you don't get the same education from the course as you would from 28 weeks of it during the school year, you will probably finish the summer course with a shovel of nearly the same size for your next cocktail party.

There's even a course that prepares you for GMAT and GRE tests, but alas, this pre-professional class cannot be taken for credit.

NONE OF THIS IS to say that the Summer School catalog is a dull read for the true liberal artist. A collection of interesting and challenging courses can be found mixed in with the likes of "Crucial Issues in Landscape Creation and Perception" (VISU S-184).

While they may not be akin to regular Harvard courses (except maybe Oscar Handlin's History 1958, which describes the role of TV in modern American life), courses like VISU S-196: The Horror Film, and PSYC S-1470: Psychopathology, seem to be courses perfect for attending on lazy summer afternoons. An interesting and unusual topic is what a summer school course should be all about.

There is also the usual assortment of introductory level courses and departmental offerings for students hanging around for the summer to catch up on their studies.

And though it's certainly nothing like Harvard in the snow, if it lets closet pre-professionals get their jollies during the summer, the summer school program is worth all the praise it's director gives it in his "Welcome to Harvard" remarks in the opening pages.