<p>Geesh folks, please go back and re-read the article. To start, here are the numbers:
Is the engineering “dropout” rate staggering? I hear the same numbers at colleges all over the country. Engineering is tough. Some students learn this later than others. And I would say that having 2/3 of the beginning bio majors complete the major without a switch is pretty darn good, especially considering how often college kids change majors.</p>
<p>Class size the only problem?
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<p>So I see quite a few reasons beyond class size, reasons that are not unique to Harvard. Kids all over the country find that the sciences are tougher than humanities, and engineering is a beast, even compared to science. </p>
<p>Is it now? Then that doesn’t quite explain how certain “adjuncts” who I know quite well are doing their job on a full-time basis at a particular school. Ok, they’re not at Harvard (I’m talking about other schools) but nevertheless, I see no sharp characterization that adjuncts are not full-time. </p>
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<p>See above. If it walks, talks and looks like a duck, in my book, it’s a duck. Specifically, if a school hires you as an “adjunct” but you don’t hold any other job, you indeed participate in faculty meetings, your total workload for that particular school is 40+ hours a week, then that’s hardly any different from being a “lecturer”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you are a “lecturer” but you also have another job which takes up far more of your time, you hardly participate in any faculty meetings (in some cases, you haven’t participated in any such meetings in months), and in fact, you spend relatively little time on campus at all, then how is that really different from just being an “adjunct”. I know people like this too. </p>
<p>We’re just playing with words here. I see no sharp distinction between adjuncts and lecturers. </p>
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<p>I said it before, I’ll say it again: this is already happening. Harvard already has lecturers teaching intro courses. Again, what exactly is the difference between taking CS 50 under Lecturer David Malan under the current setup and taking CS 50 under some other lecturer in a smaller class setting? Either way, you end up being taught by a lecturer, who presumably cannot help as much with students who are sorting out their plans, and cannot be used by Harvard to “advertise” because of the ‘marginal’ status of the faculty members (your words, not mine). Yet Harvard doesn’t seem to have a problem in doing that right now.</p>
<p>Sure, college isn’t high school. One could consider that to be a good or a bad feature: I know plenty of people who did very well in high school and then did terribly in college because they fit poorly in the environment of the college they chose. </p>
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<p>I think that’s a telling statement in and of itself. Is the real goal to just be “good enough” or to be the best as possible for as many students as possible? I prefer the latter (although obviously most schools operationalize the former). </p>
<p>Hence, one could consider a setup where large lecture classes are available to those who want them, and small lecture courses are available to those who want that. In other words, you wouldn’t need to have a one-size-fits-all system.</p>
<p>Barring that, I could envision a system where Harvard students could cross-reg with some smaller, teaching-oriented LAC’s. Lest you scoff at such an arrangement as unworkable, allow me to point out that MIT has a full cross-reg arrangement with Wellesley. Hence, I am sure that Harvard could do the same. </p>
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<p>With a $36 billion endowment, somehow I don’t think that Harvard is resource-constrained. </p>
<p>But like I said, if you want a quick fix, Harvard doesn’t have to build anything. It would just have to strike up the same cross-reg arrangement with Wellesley that MIT has, and I doubt that would be very hard or expensive to do. It could even take advantage of the existing “infrastructure”. For example, it would not be much of an extra burden for the MIT-Wellesley bus to make an additional stop at Harvard Square as it’s obviously already going to Cambridge anyway. </p>
<p>Now, is that proposal as good as if Harvard were to also run a bunch of smaller classes? No. But, hey, it’s better than the current arrangement. Those Harvard students who really really hate large lectures would be able to cross-reg. </p>
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<p>Look, nobody is denying that the student bears some responsibility for determining which environment is right. Of course that is true.</p>
<p>But what I am saying is that the school also bears some responsibility. It is unfair to lay it all on the shoulders of the student. That would be like telling a guy who joins the Army and is wounded in Iraq that, hey, you should have known that being a soldier is dangerous and now that you’re hurt, too bad for you, that’s your problem, so now you don’t deserve good medical care because you shouldn’t have joined in the first place. I believe it is the duty of the Army to provide the best possible care of each of its wounded soldiers. Similarly, I believe that Harvard should be responsible for providing the best possible education for each of its students. Either that, or just don’t admit all of those students. {Just like if the Army can’t provide high quality care for all of its soldiers, then maybe it shouldn’t bring in so many soldiers.}</p>
<p>Let me also mention that UPenn has a similar cross-reg relationship with 3 LAC’s (Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford) in the so-called “Quaker Consortium” where students are allowed to take classes at the other institutions, with a free shuttle bus that travels to each of them. Similarly the Five Colleges consortium joins UMass with Amherst, Smith, Mt Holyoke, and Hampshire. </p>
<p>The point is, if these schools can produce such an arrangement, I am fairly certain that Harvard could do the same. Heck, Harvard already has a quite impressive cross-reg relationship with MIT: the issue with that is that MIT is also a research university; therefore it doesn’t quite fit the bill for a student who is looking for small, intimate classes.</p>
<p>It would not make sense for a Harvard student to go to Wellesley to take a course that is offered at Harvard. The transportation time could be used to go to the Harvard professor’s office hours, and have lots of time left over. </p>
<p>MIT is more reasonable, but it has large introductory classes as well. Although it is within walking distance, you should hear the ROTC candidates complain about having to make the trip to MIT, and they are presumably a hardier bunch than the average Harvard student.</p>
<p>These LAC’s that set up consortia do so to increase the variety of courses available, not to encourage their students to take the same courses elsewhere. Even the smallest colleges offer the standard introductory science courses on campus. </p>
<p>This is the same story at any larger university. You get more advanced courses, but you pay for this with large intro courses. The Harvard faculty apparently is concerned that this may be part of the reason for the attrition from science, so they are looking at class size. They have also found that student satisfaction with the major is inversely proportional to the size of the major. Lots of students in the concentation=big classes, poor advising, and student dissatisfaction.</p>
<p>The issue for places like Harvard is that essentially all the students have the intellectual ability to major in just about anything. So they tend to drop out of majors not because they cannot do the work, but because they do not like the field. </p>
<p>The question is why they seem to make this decision more about science and engineering. It is possible that they are recognizing, and responding to, market forces. The student body is quite preprofessional in orientation, and the rewards for a degree in economics are consistently higher than those for a degree in engineering, let alone pure science or math. So one driver may be the economic considerations that devalue science degrees compared to heading for law, medicine, or business school.</p>
<p>This I would certainly disagree with. I doubt that any Harvard student could be a physics major just as much as I doubt any H student could be a spanish major. People’s brains are not all wired the same. A good deal of research supports this.</p>
<p>Your last paragraph is, I think, much more on the mark. Science is a lousy career for a lot of people, even a lot of Harvard alums. And engineering is not much better. And the work is hard, the average GPA for science and engineering majors is lower (this is WELL documented), so unless you love the disciplines, one can find easier ways to make a buck.</p>
Many (most?) of those students planning to major in bio are headed to med school. When they get to college they realize they can major in anything and still apply, as long as they have fulfilled pre-med requirements. So off they go into social sciences, humanities, etc.</p>
<p>^This is exactly why I’d like to see data on freshman-to-senior retention rates in the physical sciences. Not to mention those same retention rates at other schools. </p>
<p>Another possible setup that I’ve seen at some large schools: large lecture classes, supplemented by small undergrad seminars in various cross-discipline subjects. Planetary physics (jointly taught by the astronomy and geology departments), say or Politics of the FDA (poli sci and bio). While the large classes are going to emphasize problem sets and assimilating a corpus of knowledge, the seminars can be less quantitative, require an end-of-term paper, and encourage more in-class discussion. Or a clever professor can come up with other approaches that can work in large format–I’m thinking here of Cal’s “Physics for Presidents” course, or courses which examine the physics behind Spiderman.</p>
<p>A lot of colleges do what you suggest, but students must seek out the opportunity. And unfortunately, too often they don’t.</p>
<p>I think drb is on the mark: A lot of kids start out in biology with an eye on med school; a lot of kids start out in engineering with an eye on their parents (and the pressure they received to pursue a "practical’ major). Can’t speak to physics, math or geology.</p>
<p>I still think this is much ado about nothing. I wonder if the attrition is any greater for majors where the student is expected to work hard? Frankly, I wonder whether, if you looked at so called “easy” humanities majors, whether the numbers would be any different? That is to say, of those that declared an english major on entering, how many graduated in that major? (you can’t just look at starting and ending numbers because a lot of movement no doubt takes place from difficult science majors to easier humanities majors, but not the other way)</p>