Science B(itter)

Two weeks ago, I failed my Science B midterm.

At times like this, it is hard to remember that science hasn’t always made me want to slam my head against a wall, that I once harbored dreams of a career in public health, that I am not a complete moron. But while in high school a failed exam would have sent me into a tailspin of shame and despair, four years of good training in self-righteousness and entitlement at Harvard have taught me instead to reach for a beer and a pen in indignation.

Now, I could complain about the unfortunate timing of this midterm (four days after my thesis was due), and I could complain about how my request for an extension was declined (firmly), but I won’t. I can accept the blame for my lack of preparation: it’s water under the bridge, and frankly, the true contrarian in me is glad that I didn’t waste my brain space re-learning the intricacies of hormone pathways.

Ultimately, though, I don’t have a problem with learning the mechanics of cell communication; I have a problem with the mechanics of math and science Cores.

I firmly believe that all humanities concentrators should leave with an understanding of the basics of economics, biology, physics, chemistry, evolution, and so on. Neglecting these fields entirely would amount to effective disenfranchisement: without such vocabulary and analytical skills, we could not understand or ever hope to offer meaningful arguments about climate change or public health, nor could we articulate the beauty of everyday natural phenomena, or even understand presidential elections. I will not elaborate on the importance of a well-rounded liberal arts education; the case has been made more eloquently.

I just wonder what exactly the purpose is in having literature majors learn (or pretend to learn, or re-learn) how to do stoichiometry or memorize the exact chemical makeup of the stratosphere. Apart from an increased ability to memorize (or fake it), what do history students gain from memorizing dozens of equations only to forget everything a day later, or, as a friend put it, “copying problem sets and barely passing the final?”

Most science and math Cores at Harvard are like a hazing ritual: you have to get through them, but at the end, all you’re left with is relief, and perhaps a strange pain in your liver. You don’t learn to think critically by memorizing these equations; if anything, you learn to cut corners.

Again, I will retreat a bit and qualify: most of the qualms I have with the science and math Cores I’ve taken are basically bureaucratic in nature. I actually loved the lectures in my Quantitative Reasoning Core (Peter Ellison’s “Counting People”), and I was happy to absorb what I could of my Science A (again, the contrarian in me decided to protest the Core, and so I took Earth and Planetary Sciences 5, which was fascinating, but you can only imagine how well that midterm went). I’m not anti-intellectual, I just don’t like wasting my time—in fact, I think many of these Cores themselves are anti-intellectual, stifling meaningful thought and valorizing regurgitation.

An ideal math or science class would impart some broad, even practical (that word so loathsome in academic institutions) applications: I envision small courses, perhaps with emphasis on attendance and discussions or presentations, rather than equation sheets and problem sets. I don’t want to use a graphing calculator, or learn to chart population growth on an Excel spreadsheet, but I would like to understand the mechanics and ethics of stem cell research, or speak to a top professor about the intersection of demography and public health. These classes would be based less on minutiae and focus instead on helping to expand our understanding of the big picture, while teaching us some practical (that word again) analytical and quantitative skills.

Economics concentrators might balk at the idea of writing a close-reading paper for a Literature and Arts A course (close reading exercises may seem, to them, the equivalent of a problem set), chemistry concentrators may very well abhor their Moral Reasoning exams, but practicing writing, it seems to me, is always practical. Expos, in theory, prepares every Harvard student for four years of academic writing, and these early lessons are borne out through the undergraduate years, as most students will write a paper of some sort each semester.

My roommate and I, on the other hand, are left in our common room, desperately trying to resuscitate our vestigial understanding of calculus at age 22, in the days following the termination of our senior theses (word counting does not, apparently, qualify as QR). What will we gain from these few months of frustration?

If I could offer one piece of advice to the class of 2010, it would be this: take your science and math classes early. The longer your TI-86 is left to gather dust in your bottom desk drawer, the more difficult those problem sets and midterms will be. Oh, and don’t be fooled by the Cores with cushy-sounding names.

Rebecca D. O’Brien ’06 is a history and literature concentrator in Kirkland House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.