The Blind Leading the Blind

Harvard’s reputation as the finest university in the world is largely deserved—it is America’s oldest institution of higher learning, its endowment is greater than the GDP of over 100 countries, and its roster of prize-winning academics—here presumably to teach the thinkers and leaders of tomorrow—is unparalleled. In fact, despite the constant complaints about how social life at Harvard is only mildly preferable to watching paint dry, I would venture to say that most of us here probably chose Harvard because we wanted to learn, or at least because we expected that going to such a prestigious institution (and learning something along the way) would give us a leg up in the cutthroat world of job applications…and allow us to drop the H-bomb to people we meet in bars.

I come here today to tell you, though, that Matt Damon’s claim in “Good Will Hunting” that we could have attained just as good of an education for a few bucks in late fees at the local library is fast becoming a reality.

Little did we know when we came here that these stellar professors and this incomparable education would be kept at arms length from us by an unfortunate institution, guarded by a team of generally incompetent graduate students who presume to have the authority and the expertise to instruct and grade. These people, barely older than we are, control our lives for several hours each week. Yes, my friends, I speak of that peculiar and misguided aspect of a Harvard education so misrepresented in the brochures and misapplied in practice—the section and its accompanying TF.

The section, at least as it was described to me when I applied to college, was some sort of glorious ivory tower summit between a small group of students and a professor or an expert graduate student in the field. It was to be a place to shout out crazy ideas, to debate and wrestle with complicated issues, and generally look forward to attending every week. My impression was about as wrong as the O.J. Simpson jury.

The most tangible problem with sections is the people who teach them. TFs, with rare exception, tend to fall into one of two categories. Either they are disinterested and aloof, primarily using their section time as a chance to hit on undergraduate girls, or they are lacking confidence—confused and naïve to the point where they seem to know little more about the subject than the section all-stars (you know who I mean).

And although stereotyping is in bad taste, I’ll indulge myself for a second. Let me describe for you the two typical types of TFs, for it is ironic how they are so different in design, but so similar in their level of ineptitude. The typical science or math TF’s command of English is usually shaky at best, and totally non-existent at worst. When you walk into your section and feel a seismic wave of relief that practically knocks you to the floor when a TF speaks a clear and coherent sentence in English, you know your expectations have fallen unreasonably low for what your $40,000/year is supposedly buying.

Meanwhile, the humanities TF can usually speak English, but uses what verbal abilities they possess mostly to muse such pearls of wisdom as, “Great idea,” “Wow, that’s an excellent point,” and “Hmm, I don’t know…what do you think?” I once had a TF who asked someone else in my section to point to an elephant on a projection screen—an elephant that literally took up 90 percent of the screen and was more than six feet high. After that, we went on to practice coloring inside the lines, finger painting, and nap time. Welcome to Harvard, Pre-K style.

This brings me to the more insidious problem with the section system. Since the TFs fail to inspire any sort of genuine interest in the material, and generally the section grade is based on the always-vague notion of “participation,” sections become a rat race of asinine comments (“It’s really symbolic how they had the main character’s name starts with an S”), ridiculous pre-planned name dropping (“This case reminds me of the famous 1896 14th District Court case Brownnose vs. Raisemygrade…have you read it?”), and ludicrously simple questions designed to make one seem actively engaged (“I don’t understand what a table is—could you draw it on the board for me?”). Those who find themselves unable to tolerate the ridiculousness of their sections spend most of their time doodling in their notebooks, playing Minesweeper on their laptops, or simply daydreaming about how sleeping would be a more productive use of their time.

I don’t mean to incriminate all TFs by any means—certainly, there do exist TFs who understand the material, present it in an interesting and engaging manner, and actively lead their sections while inspiring discussion. So, to those TFs, I apologize for the broad strokes I have painted in this diatribe. Seriously, you guys are awesome. You know your stuff. And I’ll see you in section later today (just kidding—I would never schedule a section on a Friday). But until those TFs become the rule instead of the exception, we will leave Harvard with two things: a name on a piece of paper and a nagging sense that we are essentially no more well-educated than when we arrived four years ago.

On the plus side, though, I am getting pretty damn good at Minesweeper.



Andrew Kreicher ’06 is a biology concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.