More Credits Can Count Twice

Beginning this semester, Harvard College students will be able to apply courses taken to complete secondary fields toward other non-concentration requirements—such as those for General Education, language citations, or the Core—the Office of Undergraduate Education announced this week. But the current stipulation that no more than one course taken for a secondary field may be double-counted for a concentration will remain in place.

“Many students and their advisers have said that they found the current rules to be overly restrictive,” FAS spokesman Jeff A. Neal wrote in an e-mail. “This change in the rule was, in large part, an effort to respond to feedback we’ve received from students.”

The secondary field program was initiated in 2006 to offer students the chance to “pursue focused study in one area outside of the concentration” by taking four to six courses in a particular area, according to the College’s secondary fields Web site.

The Faculty has discussed changing the rule for over a year, but wanted to wait for the three-year-old secondary field program to become more established before adjusting it, General Education administrative director Stephanie H. Kenen wrote in an e-mail.

According to Kenan, the original policy was created when FAS was considering a different plan for Gen Ed that involved taking three courses in each of three areas—natural sciences, arts and humanities, and social sciences. Undergraduate curriculum planners did not want students to take three similar courses in one distribution category and then fulfill nearly all of the requirements for a secondary field with the same three courses.

But the Gen Ed curriculum that was eventually adopted, which requires students to choose one course in each of eight different categories, rendered this policy moot, she wrote.

For now, the adjustment is expected to alleviate “administrative headaches” for students and advisors, Kenan wrote. A Faculty-legislated review of the entire secondary field program will occur next year, as mandated by the 2006 report on curricular renewal.

Former Undergraduate Council Chair of Undergraduate Education Sarah B. Honig ’10—one of two student representatives on the Educational Policy Committee, which helped construct the new double-counting policy—said she recalled proposing this more relaxed double-counting policy to the Committee when she was a sophomore.

“Before, it was one of these policies that didn’t really make sense,” Honig said. “Hopefully it will break down barriers for students who hope to branch out into different fields.”

Athena L. Lao ’12, who was involved in the creation of the recently-approved secondary field in Ethnic Studies, said she thought this change would benefit the growing program that she helped nurture into existence.

“It will only open up the secondary to more people who thought they didn’t have room in their schedules or thought they had too many requirements to fulfill,” Lao said.

—Staff writer Julie R. Barzilay can be reached at jbarzilay13@college.harvard.edu.