<p>Curious, how difficult is the average course at Harvard, in terms of the humanities, liberal arts classes...</p>
<p>Can you describe the typical expectations of a Sociology or Political Science class?</p>
<p>Is Harvard "easier" to handle than you had initially expected or is it kicking your behind?</p>
<p>Just curious to know if Harvard's quality is as great as the reputation.</p>
<p>To clarify: I want to know about the reading workload and also the environment of the classroom.</p>
<p>Are most students snobby and extremely competitive in the classroom setting?</p>
<p>Was my question too hard?</p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>I think it's because this question has been answered numerous times.</p>
<p>For some of the Harvard courses, you can browse the course syllabuses on the Web. That is how I know that Math 55 is VERY hard--challenging to International Mathematical Olympiad gold medalists. Not all Harvard course syllabuses are publicly viewable on the Web, but look around at the courses that are most of interest to you.</p>
<p>thanks for input and yeah sorry, i'm new to CC and this is my first time on the harvard forum (have no reason to be here aside from this question)</p>
<p>anyone know of a thread that contains info on this Q?</p>
<p>As Tokenadult suggested, some courses are very hard and some not so. The CUE evaluations include a question asking students how much time per week they spend on homework (The evaluations are not accessible to non-Harvard students and faculty). From what I saw through my S, math homework ranges from "average" to incredibly difficult, from a few hours to nearly 20 per week.
In other words, you cannot generalize about "Harvard workload." It depends on the course and on the prof, even within the same department. It also depends on the rhythm of assignments. A course in the same discipline will feel different if the prof asks for one response paper per week plus a short-ish term paper from a course in which the prof asks for no response paper but has a long term paper;or one in which the prof asks for 3 short papers but no long term-paper.
Finally, what might appear as difficult to one student would not appear so to another.</p>
<p>i was just curious to know if anyone can handle a course at harvard, assuming they try very very hard. or if harvard courses really are 'special' and only fit for that harvard accepts.</p>
<p>More students than just those Harvard admits can handle Harvard courses, but fewer students than all those who are admitted to good colleges can handle the same kinds of courses at Harvard as they take at their own college.</p>
<p>The endlessly repeated admissions-speak at most top schools including Harvard is that around 80 percent of applicants are "qualified", meaning that if admitted they "could do the work", a phrase which probably means "has a reasonable chance to graduate". So the typical level of a course can be guessed to be something that the majority of applicants could take 4 of per semester and maintain an average (inflated) grade of C. Some courses will be easier and some will be much, much harder than that definition of typical.</p>