The Chore

The Core Curriculum is the single worst aspect of the Harvard education. The Faculty--judging by the reforms it voted on last spring--does not understand why the Core is inadequate for Harvard undergraduates, and the Core remains a mess, a bureaucratic beast that is dying too slowly. The Core is a multi-faceted and therefore extremely complicated problem: the Faculty Council tried and failed to solve it, and I do not have a neat solution, either. But the Faculty, particularly those members who helped create the Core in the 1970s, must realize the detrimental effects the Core has on Harvard students.

As my intellectual interests have evolved in the last two-and-a-half years, my feelings about the Core have changed as well. The program seemed adequate in my first year, and I took three Core courses; since, I have come to think of it as a large and poorly organized obstacle course between Point A (uneducated) and Point B (broadly educated). The destination is the right one, but the mode of transportation is, first, too exclusive and second, discouraging even for those students who have a wide range of interests and would travel to Point B on their own. What is wrong with the Core?

. Core courses are too big. It is difficult to engage interesting or complex material in a lecture hall with 200 other students, much less 400 or 1,000--all too typical numbers for Core courses. An exceptional instructor might succeed in such a situation, but Harvard professors tend to be exceptional scholars more than exceptional instructors. More importantly, regardless of how enthusiastic she is, the professor of a large Core course cannot interact with her students on a personal and meaningful level. This job is then left to the teaching fellows, and for these enormous classes, many section leaders are needed; this begets another problem.

. Core course section leaders are often unqualified. Core courses must provide students with section leaders, but for very large courses, there will undoubtedly be a shortage of graduate students with a specialization in the relevant area. For example, French graduate students whose areas of specialization are not film become teaching fellows for Foreign Culture 21: "Cinema et culture francaise, de 1896 a nos jours." In such situations, section leaders become nothing but glorified discussion facilitators. This is a disservice to bright graduate and undergraduate students alike.

. Departmental classes that should count for Core credit are almost always more meaningful than comparable Core classes. Core course are allegedly distinct from departmental courses in that they teach "major approaches to knowledge," but, even if every Core course succeeded in this project (the fact that not all of them do is another matter), many departmental courses do as well. The result: students are discouraged from taking small departmental lecture courses or seminars that are usually more meaningful and intellectually stimulating than Core courses. And if they go ahead and take concentration classes anyway, they do double duty in the Core and suffer because of it. Example: In my first year, I took an English departmental course, and last year I took a 90-level English seminar. This fall, I was presented with the useless duty of taking a Literature and Arts A course. I did, and it paled in comparison to either of the other two--in scope, breadth and approach to knowledge.

. There is not enough time to fulfill the core. Harvard demands that students select a concentration in their first year. This is earlier than almost any other liberal arts institution in the country. There is a great benefit to this system, but it also means that students must be able to explore various departments, outside of the Core, in order to decide. With expository writing and a potential language requirement, this becomes quite tricky for many, especially those whose very desire to become "broadly educated" may lead them down various paths. And once students select a concentration, they must fulfill concentration requirements and many must focus their interest to select a thesis topic. Small, departmental classes with senior faculty then become essential. The privilege the Core currently has of usurping one quarter of our education nearly cripples this possibility.

After a detailed review of this unwieldy beast, the Faculty decided last year that the Core Curriculum is here to stay--at least for a while. Based on the reforms--the addition of a quantitative reasoning requirement and certain departmental bypasses that we haven't yet seen--it seems clear that the extent of the problem was not properly assessed. In all likelihood, the formidable bureaucracy of the Core will crumble under the force of its own weight eventually and yield to the sensible solution of distribution requirements inspired by the philosophy of the Core. In the mean-time, we must petition for relevant departmental bypasses and impress upon the Faculty that the system instituted in the 1970s has worn out its welcome.

The introduction to the Core Curriculum states, "The Core is, simply, an attempt to say what it means to be broadly educated today, and to translate that appraisal into courses that will capture the interest of students and faculty alike." In theory, this rings true; in practice, it is utter nonsense. For lack of other options, I have tried to discover my academic interests and broadly educate myself at this institution by taking as many departmental courses as I can. Alas, I have not been a superior navigator of the obstacle course because I have four Chores left. Now that I have developed my interests and could really benefit from close contact with professors, I will be stuck for one-third of my remaining time in impersonal lecture courses. Is there justice at Harvard. Where is Michael Sandel when you need him?

Daniel M. Suleiman '99 is a social studies concentrator living in Leverett House. His column will appear on alternate Mondays.