<p>I understand that Haverford is part of a consortium so course offerings would be more expansive but I wonder if your pretty much locked-in each semester fullfilling requirements. I have read parts of the course catalog and it looks as though there is a somewhat ridgid path even though there is an absence of a well defined core.
Any comments would be helpful</p>
<p>I agree that there are a fair number of requirements but there’s still a lot of flexibility to design a course of study that appeals to you. </p>
<p>A typical student might devote 20 courses to various requirements, out of the 32 courses required for graduation. All requirements combined (your major, distribution requirements, a writing seminar, foreign language proficiency) add up to at most 25 credits, but many students test out of the foreign language requirement and some courses count towards several requirements. For example, courses for your major count towards distribution requirements.</p>
<p>You also have a lot of flexibility in scheduling your courses. For example, some students try to get their distribution requirements out of the way early and others postpone them for a while. There are some good reasons for either approach. For example, if you are undecided between several science majors, it might make sense to take a lot of science courses early on and hold off on the social science courses until later. Some students wait for a particular course or a lower-level course taught by a particularly popular professor. Other students get their general education requirements out of the way early so that they can focus on their major later. It’s really up to you!</p>
<p>The distribution requirements are also extremely flexible content-wise. You can satisfy your humanities requirement with piano lessons, history seminars or philosophy lectures. You can choose a traditional physics class for your science requirement or instead learn about science policy or information technology. If you don’t like to experiment with courses in other divisions, you can usually find courses that satisfy requirements and are relevant to your own interests. For example, statistics is useful in a lot of social sciences. Science majors might be interested in logic or the philosophy of science (humanities). Humanities majors might benefit from learning another foreign language (social science), especially if they are considering graduate school.</p>