Support Freshman Seminars

For first-years, freshman seminars are Harvard’s most valuable academic treasures. They create an intimate setting of about 12 students, close interaction with a faculty member and in-depth investigation into a topic of choice. Freshman seminar offerings considerably increased this year, which should be celebrated as a concrete improvement for the undergraduate academic curriculum.

Ever since the faculty discussed revamping the freshman seminar program two years ago, the number of freshman seminars has dramatically increased. This year, first-years could choose from a record-breaking number of 88 courses, up from last year’s 61 and 36 the year before that. The number of applicants has also substantially increased—some 1054 applied for just this fall semester’s offerings. Fortunately, the increase in numbers signals that this program is reaching a greater number of first-year students and enhancing their academic careers.

Accompanying the general trend, math and science offerings under the freshman seminar program have also proliferated. Whereas in past years these fields were underrepresented, now first-years interested in math and science fields will have a wider range of relevant topics to explore.

It is truly unfortunate that some advisors are discouraging first-years from participating in the program by saying that freshman seminars do not “fit” into a busy schedule. Counting some seminars as concentration requirements, however, is not the right way to approach the issue.

If each department picked out several seminars that would count for departmental credit, first-years planning to concentrate in a specific department might feel coerced to take seminars that would count for credit—making them less eager to explore new unfamiliar fields, which is one of the seminar program’s greatest strengths. Freshman seminars allow students to branch out from the field they’ll be studying for the next three years, and sometimes even cause students to change their intended plan of study. Any move that would discourage students from diversifying their academic experience would daunt the fresh curiosity of first-years. Additionally, because freshman seminars are lotteried, it would be unfair to grant concentration credit to only those students who are accepted.

Hopefully the success and heightened interest in freshman seminars will encourage individual departments to increase the number of upperclass seminars. The type of in-depth learning that takes place in a small, intimate setting is of the utmost benefit to undergraduates, and an increase in these offerings will augment the academic career of any Harvard student.

Dissent: Count Seminars For Concentration

Freshman seminars provide first-years with an invaluable opportunity. Currently, there are not enough seminars to meet the high demand—and one of the greatest steps the University could take to improve undergraduate education would be to continue to expand the seminar program to reach that demand.

When there are an adequate number of seminars, however, it would be folly not to allow them to count for concentration credit. Participants in seminars are already chosen by application. This selective process ensures that students really want to be participating in the seminars they attend. Those who are interested in broadening their horizons by taking a seminar outside their concentration area will still be able to do so, at no penalty—they will merely use an elective, as everyone does under the current system. It makes no sense to penalize students who wish to take a seminar in their concentration area for the sole purpose of forcing first-years to be intellectually curious.

Seminars are often rigorous, introducing students to advanced material equivalent to the subject matter taught in higher-level departmental courses. They should therefore rightfully be counted for credit.

—David M. DeBartolo ’03, Robert J. Fenster ’03,

Ronaldo Rauseo-Ricupero ’04 and Zachary Z. Norman ’04