Just the Two of Us

You show up to lecture on the first day, expecting to be jammed among a throng of shoppers—or at least surrounded by a handful of other prospective students. But walking down the eerily empty aisle, you suddenly realize: the other shoppers are mysteriously absent.

“The first day was just me,” says Vito A. Cannavo ’10, the lone student in History 1619: “Premodern Vietnam.” “I was the only person there.” Falling asleep in this class is simply not an option.

Unlike one-on-one tutorials, this class is not intentionally small. “This is the only time I have had one student in what is supposed to be a lecture class,” writes Hue-Tam Ho Tai, the course’s professor, in an e-mail.

But the class’s small size is not without benefits.

While Cannavo says it was intimidating at first, the class has since become a twice-a-week, one-on-one conversation with a great professor. While Tai says she would love the chance to introduce the subject to more students, having only one allows for focused instruction. “I can also try to tailor my lecture very specifically to that student,” she says, “building on what he knows and making connections that may be of interest to him.”

While the rest of you may not be getting the most personal academic experience, remember that at least you can show up to Ec 10 thirty minutes late, not having done a page of the reading, and sleep for the last half—and Mankiw won’t have a clue.