<p>My son is a junior who is interested in majoring in history. We live in the mid-Atlantic area and thus are aware of Hopkins' reputation in medicine and bioengineering. Could any current students or alumni who have majored in the humanities at Hopkins comment on their experience? I would imagine that since there are less humanities majors, classes should be smaller and seminar-based? Is this assumption correct? Do humanities students also do research projects? How accessible are the profs if undergrads want to do a research project/thesis in the humanities?</p>
<p>Just had a call from my son who's at today's open house. He'll be a writing seminars major and he LOVES what he sees. Its amazing how few people know that JHU is #2 in the country in creative writing. He was told that writing seminars is the second leading major behind biology. (You'd never know it from reading this board where it seems everyone is BME, premed or an engineer!) The humanities depts like history are not very large but apparently very strong.</p>
<p>Thanks, roberthhid.
How did your son find JHU as a humanities major? Did students with tech vs. humanities interests mix well? I have heard that at a truly science-oriented school like MIT, students majoring even in the social sciences, may feel left out of the intellectual mainstream. I realize that the academic interests among students at JHU would be more diverse than at MIT; however, I presume the majority of students would still be majoiring in engineering, biology, and other sciences. Don't know if that is definitely true, though.</p>
<p>This thread is helpful for your question <a href="http://messageboard.chatuniversity.com/jhuboard/default.asp?action=9&read=29936&fid=786%5B/url%5D">http://messageboard.chatuniversity.com/jhuboard/default.asp?action=9&read=29936&fid=786</a></p>
<p>Nice thread, Roberthhid. Thanks.</p>
<p>Hi pmyen, just curious, why did your S pick jhu for humanities when there are so many other great places (equally hard to get into) for disciplines in humanities?<br>
Many people are aware that jhu, MIT and such are known for the "crowding out effect," where the majority of students are so engrossed in premed or engineering that the minority of humanities students feel left out. This leads to fewer resources devoted to them, and smaller (but not necessarily weaker) departments in those disciplines.</p>
<p>Very interesting question that is being posed in this thread, where exactly do humanities majors stand at Hopkins? Being an engineering major, it is difficult for me to say, but I would guess that they don't feel left out at all. They know they are getting a good education from a fine school, but I can tell you humanities majors are looked down upon by many of the engineering students, after all the school of arts and sciences is widely refered to as the school of arts and crafts. To some extent it is only a joke but I would be curious to poll engineering students as to their exact thoughts on the matter. I know many of my friends consider any major other than engineering/pure science to be an absolute joke. Even the "better" humanities majors here (IR, Poli Sci, Econ, Hist, languages, etc.) are seen as very easy to the engineers (Writing Sems is probably the biggest joke of them all even if they are highly ranked). To a certain extent I see their point, I have never taken an H or S credit that I would consider as difficult as my introductory engineering courses, and in general the work required to get a B+/A- is substantially lower than that of an engineering course, but I have a certain amount of respect for the work they do. On another note there was just an article written in the school paper complaining about the lack of funding given to many of the humanities program, citiing how the number of students keeps increasing but the number of spots in courses or number of courses offered remains relatively stagnant. Apparently there is a problem (particularly in the Poli Sci department) of students in the major being able to register for courses because they fill up too quickly. The cause of this, I'm not sure, but one could certainly look to the administration for answers. There is a problem that is currently being addressed, it will be interesting to see how the school reacts in the next few years.</p>
<p>Just some food for thought</p>
<p>I'm currently a student at Hopkins in the humanities, and I think it's great. No one looks down on me as far as I know and if they do I don't really care--I understand that they have much more work than me. In fact, that's one of the reasons I prefer humanities. I don't want to be spending hours memorizing formulas, etc. But I must say that I'm getting an excellent education. I've taken 11 courses so far and loved all of them aside from 1. That sounds like a good ratio to me. My only problem is narrowing down what major to do, because I love so many departments. I've taken great classes in Writing Seminars, E&M (business), Psychology, English, and Philosophy. I LOVE political science and I haven't even gotten a chance to take ONE class in that area yet as I've had so many others I love. I might even end up doing a poli sci major.</p>
<p>Chlor, my son is a junior so he hasn't applied to colleges yet. We live about an hour away from Hopkins so its proximity to home is attractive to him. My son most likely will be applying to a number of LACs; however, the small university size of Hopkins is attractive to him. Also, although he enjoys the humanities, it turns out that a number of his close friends are math/computer types and he shares some of their interests. Are there distribution requirements in the math/sciences required for graduation? Although he is not a math/science whiz, he is fairly strong in these areas, taking an AP course in Chemistry this year and will take calculus next year. Hopefully, he can handle any required courses if necessary.
Appreciate all of the student advice so far.</p>
<p>the AP Chemistry and AP calc might satisfy all the distribution requirments that he needs ;)</p>
<p>Good news. He'll be glad to hear that.</p>
<p>At Hopkins, seems like you can get away with not taking many math/science as a Humanities student.</p>