Balancing the Core

Something in the Core Curriculum is fundamentally wrong--wrong, as in unjust. The latest debates about the Core have confined themselves to discussions of new areas and the overall scope of courses. But the crux of the problem lies deeper within Harvard's most onerous requirement. By discouraging students from exploring many departments outside their own fields, the Core exacerbates exactly the problem it was meant to remedy.

At most schools, students can wait until the end of their sophomore year to decide on a major. At Harvard, students declare their concentrations in May of their first year, before they've even taken final exams in what may be their first courses in their chosen fields.

When it comes to choosing a concentration at Harvard, faster is better. "Faster" means doing it in one semester rather than in two. Changing your major, especially between natural sciences and humanities, may lead to an extremely constricted academic program. In the case of people who choose too late or have a change of heart during sophomore year, the Core Curriculum threatens to squeeze any and all electives from their schedules.

The Core usually takes up about one-quarter of a given student's academic program. Your concentration determines which Cores you don't have to take, and usually these are the ones that are too redundant--or too plain easy--for someone in that field. Why doesn't a physics major have to take Science A? Because Science A courses aren't much compared to Physics 5 or 15.

Let's say you begin as a prospective Chemistry major and eventually switch to a concentration in the humanities. You take the Chemistry 10, Math 21a, Physics 11a schedule in your first semester, and then decide that it doesn't light your fire. In the second semester, you take courses geared to a Fine Arts concentration. So you've wasted three courses to get a Science A exemption in addition to your Fine Arts exemptions.

But perhaps you don't make your decision until second semester, after you've taken the apocalyptic course innocently titled "Organic Chemistry." Now you're really in trouble--you've probably taken six courses that add up to only one exemption.

Now, what happens if you decide to major in Physics after having taken Science A in the first semester of your first year? It's quite a plausible situation: Someone who expects to concentrate in Classics takes Science A to fill a requirement, then falls in love with the material. This person has a three-sided problem. A Physics Core exemption has been wasted, a Science A will be credited as a precious elective and the aspiring physicist must start from scratch in the department. To make things worse, Physics 5 probably repeats some of the material from the Science A that lured the student away from Classics.

This student, however, fell into an even more treacherous trap than the Chemistry-Fine Arts person. All those Classics courses don't garner any Core exemptions. A former Classics concentrator, with a semester of intensive Greek in tow, could decide to take "The Concept of the Hero in Hellenic Civilization" to fulfill a Literature and Arts C requirement. But why should the student have to take a Literature and Arts C, after taking more rigorous courses in Classics?

Harvard does little to make the science-humanities switch easier. Some introductory courses are too much of a commitment to allow people to switch majors easily. What if you decided during the fall semester to concentrate in Economics? You can't really begin taking Social Analysis 10, a noteable department course masquerading as a Core, in the spring semester. Nor can you take many other Economics courses before taking "Ec 10." The same is true of Music 51, another indivisible full-year course that many first-years take. Making a decision after one semester costs you a full year.

Humanities concentrators who are interested in science can take real, departmental courses to fill Science A and B requirements. Yet, science majors who have a penchant for humanities can do no such thing. They'll never get Moral Reasoning credit for a Philosophy course, unless they file a last-minute petition to ensure their graduation.

The Core was established to broaden students' minds through study in diverse fields. Yet, under the current system, science majors are actually discouraged from taking courses in other departments. Department courses in the humanities can't substitute for Cores, so savy science concentrators take Cores instead of making the effort to sample a different department. Meanwhile, humanities majors can still choose to take Harvard's own, watered-down version of "Biology for Poets" instead of a substantive course.

To any outside observer not yet enamored of the white elephant known as the Core, the solution would be obvious. The Core's goals need not be accomplished by setting up scores of new courses that are soon labeled as "guts." Why not draw up a list from the regular course catalog of all the introductory-level courses that would count toward all ten Core requirements?

The Core itself already provides extensive evidence that such a system would work. Some of its courses, subtly skirting the problems mentioned earlier, serve as required or recommended starting points for concentrations. "Ec 10," Literature and Arts B-17 and B-18, Science B-15 and Historical Studies A-12 commonly assume this role. If they simply became regular courses available to fill Core requirements, the courses themselves would be fortified to live up to departmental norms.

Core administrators must remember that every professor who teaches a Core also has a departmental affiliation. It's hypocritical to say that a Core course teaches what the Committee on the Core Program calls "major approaches to knowledge" any better than a departmental course. The faculty is the same for both, and the subject matter can only be more robust in a departmental course.

A lot of negotiating will have to happen if the Core is to change. Some professors treat Core courses as their private fiefs and use them for personal glorification and processes of indoctrination. These people, hopefully few in number, will be reluctant to be the equals of their departmental colleagues again. Furthermore, some departments might not feel that they fit into one or more of the ten Core areas. In these cases, precedent could be the deciding factor. If a History of Science professor has taught a Science B before, let similar History of Science courses count for Science B.

These changes all aim to strengthen the Core Curriculum. Get humanities students into the lab! Force science concentrators to brave Widener! Enough hedging--Harvard must seize the opportunity to expand its students' minds in the most definitive way.