Shopping Period Makes Harvard Special

To the editors:

No one who has experienced the “shopping period” at the beginning of each semester at Harvard could ever suggest limiting or eliminating it (News, “Students Fight For Shopping Period,” Feb. 11).

When I tell my children about the intellectual wonders of Harvard, one of the things I have always included has been the excitement of the “shopping period” for courses. This is a time for discovering new academic possibilities. In my own case, I arrived at Harvard as a freshman planning to take government courses and found an anthropology course, a philosophy course and a psychology course during my first “shopping period,” all courses that I ended up taking that fall, and in addition I found a second philosophy course to audit.

Edward Tabor, M.D. ’69

Feb. 11, 2003