Cores Flowing Out the Doors

As students started shopping, classes were packed all around—often overflowing into hallways—with a disproportionate number of these courses counting toward the Core Curriculum. Though College administrators were able to predict that General Education classes would be large since freshmen have just one "U.S. in the World" class to look at this fall, they may have forgotten that there are still all those sophomores, juniors, and seniors who are under a curriculum that has already "shuffled off its mortal coil," in English professor James Simpson's words over a year ago.

So you may not expect a course on classical Chinese ethical and political theory to attract that much attention. Sure, we all know about Confucius, and maybe Sun Tzu too. But considering Harvard students' tendency to take eight classes with overlapping subject matter in order to pad their GPAs, it's surprising that this East Asian studies class had students packed and overflowing into the hallway (and about half the students there had to stand). But wait for it, wait for it: its official title is Moral Reasoning 78, and only two other Moral Reasoning classes are being offered this fall. While this may force students to branch out, the options depend entirely on the specialties of the few professors who are still interested in teaching in the Core Curriculum.

Another professor whose course flier declares, "Wake up, it's the 7th century!" (for History 1040: "The Fall of the Roman Empire") is also teaching in the ancient Core. Though this Historical Study B class doesn't double-count toward Gen Ed, about 20 people couldn't get in, and upperclassmen were flooding the hallways to such an extent that one lone freshman girl on the window-sill had to ask, "Can freshmen take this too?"

Another tip to find out which classes are overflowing is to see which ones have fliers everywhere. Since Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 26: "Gender and Performance" had fliers (along with a 4.8 Q Guide score) and counts toward both Gen Ed and the Core (Literature and Arts B), it hit the jackpot.  Students were pouring out of the hallway onto the steps of Emerson Hall.

The overflow list continues, after the jump:

English 182: "Science Fiction," which counts toward Literature and Arts A.

Music 2: "Foundations of Tonal Music," which counts toward Literature and Arts B.

Astronomy 17: "Galactic and Extragalactic Astronomy," which counts toward Science A.

English 168d: "Postwar American and British Fiction," which counts toward Literature and Arts A. (Although the crowd in this class probably has more to do with the headlining professor, the inimitable James Wood, than the fact that it counts as a core class. Let's be honest—is anyone going to compete with a flock of fawning English concentrators when all they really want is an easy A in a core?)

Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 37: "Introduction to the Bible in the Humanities and the Arts," which counts toward Literature and Arts A. (Granted, this is Gordon Teskey, and he's awesome.)

Whether you're in Gen Ed or the Core, chances are there aren't enough classes to choose from, even though the subject matter is still pretty specific.  So, happy shopping.