<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200503/douthat%5B/url%5D">http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200503/douthat</a>
THE TRUTH ABOUT HARVARD
By Ross Douthat | Mar 1, 2005
(The Atlantic Monthly Magazine)</p>
<p>It may be hard to get into Harvard, but it's easy to get out without learning much of enduring value at all. A recent graduate's report</p>
<p>At the beginning of every term Harvard students enjoy a one-week "shopping period," during which they can sample as many courses as they like and thus—or so the theory goes—concoct the most appropriate schedule for their semesters. There is a boisterous quality to this stretch, a sense of intellectual possibility, as people pop in and out of lecture halls, grabbing syllabi and listening for twenty minutes or so before darting away to other classes.</p>