A Final Club For All

To the Harvard-trained ear, TheFinalClub.org sounds like a Web site to keep students plugged into the Saturday night party scene. Unfortunately for social butterflies—but luckily for everyone else—the site is dedicated to the other side of Harvard: academics.

TheFinalClub.org, created by Harvard grads Andrew J. Magliozzi ’05 and Jay K. Bacrania ’05, features extensive annotations on literary classics like Macbeth, the Federalist Papers, and the Bible. But the real meat of the site is the detailed, organized, play-by-play lecture notes on Harvard classes ranging from Science B-47: “The Molecules of Life,” to the ever-popular Psychology 1504: “Positive Psychology.” The site is blogged by ambitious students, and sometimes even course TFs.

Sound like a Mecca for lazy Harvard students? Don’t hold your breath.

SPARKNOTES IS SO HIGH SCHOOL

“Sparknotes is disgusting,” says Magliozzi. With a calm demeanor and an intellectual air, Magliozzi fits right in at the pseudo-intellectual Hist and Lit haven, Café Pamplona, tucked away in a corner table. “These are the classic works of literatures—we should be engaging more, not less.”

It seems counter-intuitive for the creator of a Web site devoted to annotating classic works of literature and blogging about popular courses at Harvard to be so opposed to an ostensibly comparable pursuit to his own. Sites like Sparknotes.com—another Harvard alum creation—and Cliffnotes.com have been around for nearly a decade, providing apathetic students a quick and easy 30-minute Idiot’s Guide to not sounding like a moron in class. But those sites are so...high-school.

TheFinalClub.org may be our college answer to the age-old question of how to cut corners and get the same results—something many Harvard students love. According to James C. Liu ’10, the College provides ample opportunities for students to drop the ball, but still win the game.

“One of the main reasons I don’t go to my earliest classes is because it’s just easier to watch the lectures later and not have to wake up so early,” Liu says. “It’s a big difference if there’s no motivation to go to class, no repercussions.”

It may be true that TheFinalClub.org fuels this lazy fire, giving students yet another excuse to skip class. The site, however, isn’t targeted at students looking for shortcuts. Luyi Zhang ’10 sees the site as a helping hand for hard-working Harvardians: “I don’t want to skip class. When I skip class, it’s because of lack of sleep or work. So a site like this really wouldn’t be an incentive for me to skip class. It would just be a nice safety barrier.”

Magliozzi swears by the latter, noting that creating shortcuts is not the purpose of the site. “The idea is not to give Harvard students a lazy way out,” he explains. “It’s to give really intellectually, academically curious Harvard students a way to engage more.”

At a school where students barely have time to attend classes, sections and labs—much less discuss the abstract ideas presented in them—Magliozzi advocates open discussion. “Ideally, the site will help engage students more, and since it’s open to everyone at Harvard and the public, broaden the classroom discussions—not just with friends.”

This focus on expanding education rather than abridging it is built into the structure of the Web site. Magliozzi notes that reading the blogs and lecture summaries is far from a replacement for lecture attendance and readings. “If you want to pass the class, you can do that,” he says of the scope of the site. “You won’t get an A reading our blog. If you skip all the classes, you’re quite frankly screwed.”

PROFS: GO PUBLIC!

While it’s easy enough to justify a site like this with a few a solid soundbites—“engaging open discussion” instead of “helping students slack off”—doubts over the legitimacy of TheFinalClub.org still remain. But the professors and TFs that one would expect to oppose the site most are highly supportive.

Professors must grant permission for their course to be blogged on the site, so if you thought it would be your own little secret, think again. Professors know what they’re getting into, and many of them couldn’t be happier.

Science B-62: “The Human Mind” TF Kyle A. Thomas is an active blogger for his class, and frequently encourages his students to check out the Web site. “I think the more ways students see ideas presented, the more likely they are to understand it—not as a substitution, but as a complement to the class.” And proving that he really is a cool TF, Thomas also notes that “as long as the students learn the material, it doesn’t matter if they’re going to lecture. It would be great if they went to lecture, but I would support them not going as long as they were getting A’s in the class.” While not everyone shares this idealized view, most still agree that TheFinalClub.org is a good resource for students.

Timothy P. McCarthy ’93, the lecturer of Lit and Arts A-86: “American Protest Literature from Tom Paine to Tupac,” also expresses strong approval of the site, claiming that he is “actually going to use the blog to enhance [his] own lecture notes.” In fact, McCarthy is thankful for the site: “The person who’s blogging makes me and [Professor] John [Stauffer] sound quite smart!” he says.

Vanity aside, McCarthy has no qualms about the legitimacy of the Web site. In fact, he wonders why more professors aren’t making their courses available online. “I don’t know how students would use it in the wrong way,” McCarthy says. “It seems to me that this is one of those opportunities where you can go to the site and enhance your own lecture notes.”

Hard as it is to believe that such a site actually has good intentions, TheFinalClub.org shows no signs of moving to the Sparknotes side of the course-assistance spectrum. Indeed, if more Harvard professors get involved, this site could be an even stronger resource for enhancing students’ understanding in many classes—without cutting corners. A forum of education that professors and students can both agree on? Now, there’s a Harvard solution even Pilbeam can’t take away.