<p>I've read dozens of times about how strong the HASS departments are, but I don't recall ever seeing any personal anecdotes about them. I'm someone who really really likes history and English in addition to math/sci. I know there will be lots of classes that I can take at MIT in those fields, but I would appreciate hearing whether MIT CCers have liked the HASS classes they've taken. Are they challenging/easy? Are the professors good at teaching/interesting/challenging/funny? any specific experiences you've had with HASS classes that you'd like to share would be amazing. :)</p>
<p>I love it.</p>
<p>I just declared a history double major (in conjunction with my bio primary major), and I’ve taken 11 HASS classes already at MIT (with only three of them being in history, actually : P). I’m also taking 4 history classes this semester.</p>
<p>So I have to go study for my bio classes and finish my pset, but I’m going to be writing two blogs on this topic on the MIT blogs soon, so please look for it. The first one will be the “Burchard Scholars Program” in the HASS department that we have here, and the second one will be why I declared a history major in a tech university.</p>
<p>I hope there will be interesting anecdotes in them to satisfy your curiosity. (:</p>
<p>Bottom line: I am an adamant believer that people who say MIT Humanities sucks do not have the slightest clue of what they’re talking about. I’ve seen too many evidence in the contrary to believe that.</p>
<p>(btw, I was a heavy humanities student in high school as well - I took APs Psych, Gov’t, English Lit, and the three histories - in fact, English Lit was my favorite class in high school :P)</p>
<p>I’m not super-gung-ho about the humanities in general, but I was really happy in most of the courses I chose to take at MIT.</p>
<p>I concentrated in Anthropology, and I was really well-served by both the small sizes of the classes (one of my classes only had five or six students, plus the professor), and also by the subject matter and the way it was taught and discussed. I took two classes from the same 21A professor because, although she and I disagreed strongly on many issues, I was thrilled by the opportunity to discuss and debate with someone so knowledgeable and accomplished. </p>
<p>I really enjoyed my HASS classes, and I think they improved both my written expression and my ability to defend my ideas, both critically important for me as a scientist.</p>
<p>If I could do it again, I would probably shy away from the bigger lecture-style (often HASS-D) humanities courses in favor of the smaller discussion-based courses. There are so many more opportunities to discuss ideas and really get to the heart of a subject in a smaller class, and there’s such a wide variety of those small courses available at MIT.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies thus far. </p>
<p>I’ll definitely be looking for your blog posts, Chris. I’ll go ahead and ask another question here, too. Where can I find specific information about the HASS requirement? I’m just wondering, if I concentrated in English lit, would I be able to make all my hass classes lit classes, or would I be required to take history classes as well?</p>
<p>Thanks again :)</p>
<p>Has anyone taken a philosophy class/concentrated in philosophy?</p>
<p>The HASS requirement is sort of confusing, though it becomes clearer when you’re actually at MIT.</p>
<p>The overarching requirement is that you need to take eight classes in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Within that eight-subject requirement, there are several sub-requirements: the communication requirement, the distribution requirement, and the concentration requirement.</p>
<p>Communication requirement: You must take two courses that are designated as “communication-intensive”, which means they require a certain number of pages of writing and at least one oral presentation, etc. It is not hard to fulfill the communication requirement, because a large number of HASSes are designated as CI.</p>
<p>Distribution requirement: There exists a list with five categories, and you must take three classes from this list, each being from a different category. The cagegories are (1) Literary and Textual Studies, (2) Language, Thought, and Value, (3) Visual and Performing Arts, (4) Cultural and Social Studies, and (5) Historical Studies.</p>
<p>Concentration requirement: You must complete a set of three to four classes in a particular subject. Fields of concentration are listed [url=<a href=“http://shass.mit.edu/undergraduate/hass/concentration]here[/url”>MIT SHASS: Undergraduate Studies - Updated]here[/url</a>], and each field is different – some require certain courses be taken, and others are more free-form.</p>
<p>Any of these requirements may overlap if you choose, so you could take a communication-intensive course on the HASS-D list that also was in your concentration. So no, you do not have to take any particular course, but neither can you take courses only in one department.</p>
<p>I think the HASS requirement is actually going to change for the incoming class, but I’m not sure exactly how. But you still won’t be able to take courses in just one department.</p>
<p>The difference between now and the new class is the distribution requirement. There will be three categories (humanities, arts, social sciences), you must take a class in each of those, and any class will count towards one of those categories (as opposed to HASS-Ds currently, which need to specifically be designated).</p>
<p>Thanks for the answers everyone 
That’s really helpful.</p>
<p>I liked most of my HASS classes, especially those in my concentration (International Politics/Security Studies). 17.405 (Politics & Conflict in the Middle East) was a favorite - it has been helpful, when I see news stories about the Middle East, to have that sort of historical background.</p>
<p>21W.735 (Writing and Reading the Essay), which I took with Manning, was also one of my favorites. 15 or 16 of us started the class on the first day. We got, among other things, a description of the way Manning grades essays. By the second class, there were only nine of us left. Those of us who stayed all agreed that it was one of our favorite classes.</p>
<p>that sounds super intense and scary, Jessie, but it’s also what I’m looking for in English classes. Would you say only a few English classes are like that, or are they all as challenging?</p>
<p>It was the only English/writing class I took, so I couldn’t really say. I gather that the intro classes are mostly not like that, but I suspect that some of the other advanced ones are. I suspect that anything taught by Kenneth Manning is, because the intensity and quality of the class was much more to do with him as a professor than to do with the content.</p>
<p>I’ve only taken one so far, Rhetoric. I wasn’t terribly pleased with it; bit of a waste of my time. We didn’t actually learn anything haha Essentially we just repeated the words pathos, ethos, and logos for the entire semester, nothing wildly exciting. I only took it because it satisfied both a CI-H and HASSD requirement, and because it had a bunch of small writing assignments instead a few long ones, so it was kind of my own fault for not choosing something I was more interested in. I’m looking forward to taking some music theory and German HASS classes in the future, but for now I just want to complete my two CI-Hs.</p>