Don’t Rush Language

The typical college freshman expects one thing more than anything else in his or her new surroundings: independence. Dorm life and ‘optional lectures’ create a vacuum in which to balance work and personal time. How to spend our time is a challenging choice that students are certainly trusted to make.

But this freedom should extend to one’s academic choices, as well. College represents a chance to pursue the studies that appeal to you, instead of the AP courses you were spoon-fed in high school. Freshmen can’t help but be disappointed that they still have to fulfill requirements in the very subjects they were trying to avoid. Whether it be math, the sciences, or those shapeless humanities, these distasteful courses await.

This demand is typically made less daunting, however, because of the four years over which students can spread out required classes. But at Harvard, along with the doomed core curriculum comes one time-specific requirement: that students take two semesters of a foreign language their freshman year unless they achieve a specified score on AP, SAT II, or Harvard placement tests.

Learning a foreign language is essential to becoming a “global citizen” and a less blinkered student. After graduation foreign languages are of undeniable practical value in employment, travel, and general interaction. For those students who are certain of their goals, diving right into a program might make perfect sense.

On the whole, though, the great significance of foreign languages is an argument against—not for—requiring them in a students’ first year and thereby impinging upon students’ ability to choose what’s best for them. In most cases, undergraduates deeper into their Harvard education can make a more sensible decision on the language they will focus upon, rather than making a hasty decision freshman year (consider the aspiring doctor with a summer internship in Peru, or the economist with a sudden epiphany to embrace the classics).

By this token, if Harvard really wants all of its students to become successful and worldly graduates, it should actually encourage its students to take a language during their senior year. As commencement looms, students better understand the path that awaits them, and they are more likely to remember a language taken in their final year than one gathering dust from three years before.

The Harvard freshman’s schedule already has at least one semester of expository writing in it (some have two). What’s more, many of our campus’s newest inhabitants are worn out from their high-school language experience or unsure of what new tongue to take up next. This unique dilemma, and the grumbling that follows, is created entirely by the haphazard, bureaucratic rules in place that stifle a welcoming intellectual environment. In the spirit of cultivating curious, focused minds, Harvard should trust its students to make their own informed, reasoned choices from among its 4,000-plus courses.

Marcel E. Moran ’11, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Pennypacker Hall.