<p>In Harvard Magazine, written by a senior Classics concentrator and AME for The Crimson. Excellent article about how academics are rarely the top priority for Harvard students, and how the university should think about efforts to change this.</p>
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But the rub to all this, as I glimpsed briefly last winter, is that many students run the risk of never achieving the level of sustained, focused engagement in their studies necessary to spark serious academic interest. It falls to the College to push back a bit, to find a policy tack that will allow the classroom to take back some of the territory currently overrun by student organizations. Im not advocating stamping out the extracurricular pursuits that give the campus its flavorjust tweaking the equilibrium somewhat. Otherwise, Harvard will have to continue to accept the fact that some of the nations finest students are barely tapping deep reservoirs of academic potential, and that the beginnings of scholarly curiosity are routinely sliding away like runoff on a badly designed road.
<p>I was a science major (Human Evolutionary Biology, but I took most of the premed curriculum). I think many of my courses, particularly upper level HEB courses, could have used more rigor. </p>
<p>I think Flow’s argument is less that Harvard classes need to be harder (i.e. more reading, more assignments, etc), but that Harvard students need to be held accountable for actually doing the work that is assigned on-time and at a high level.</p>
<p>(And for what it’s worth, Classics is known as a rather difficult concentration… although maybe less so after the change in requirements.)</p>
<p>I don’t know that much about Harvard profs except as to what I have heard as a parent, but I can tell you that as a member of the EE faculty at another university there are significant differences between how hard a course is depending on who is teaching and grading it. For example, I tend not to flunk anybody and usually curve my grades so that they lie between an A and a D. Others have told me that in the same situation as I have been in with some students, they would have no problem flunking half the class.</p>
<p>Larry Summers tried to make Harvard “harder” for undergraduates and failed – not only were the undergrads a bit resistant, but the faculty resented the innuendo and rebelled.</p>
<p>Except for certain classes in certain fields (like Math 55), Harvard is not especially challenging – no more so than most “plain vanilla” universities. Kids are held much more accountable often at “lesser” schools. </p>
<p>This is a big “secret” that really is no secret at all.</p>
<p>None of the ivies imposes the same expectation that a student master a field in breadth and depth the way that Oxbridge does. It is a pity, too.</p>
<p>Well, Princeton does have its grade ‘‘deflation’’ policy in which roughly 35% in a class will receive an A, thus requiring students to work harder relative to students at Princeton’s peer schools in order to receive good grades. Perhaps Harvard will attempt to introduce a similar policy for its undergraduate college?</p>
<p>Intense extracurriculars like The Crimson and the Institute of Politics provide huge educational experiences, often complimenting coursework, and enhancing job and internship prospects. Interaction with living senators and legislators can offer more knowledge and insight than more assigned readings & papers.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone doubts that The Crimson and other non-academic activities have really significant educational value, as well as career-building value. But that doesn’t mean that academic classes should be made less demanding to accommodate the ECs, or that students devoting most of their time to ECs, not classes, deserve to get As or Bs in the classes.</p>
<p>For as long as I can remember, some classes were considered “gut courses” and some not. Some profs had strict rules about accepting late papers with or without penalty and others were more lax about deadlines.
One dean once observed that every time grade inflation is mentioned, grades actually go up. The most vociferous opponents of stricter grading turn out to be profs who have taught at other universities before coming to Harvard.
Students can try to seek out gut courses and easy graders; others take the hardest courses they can. Veterans of Math 55 are expected to take grad courses, so it’s not just that one course that is hard. And judging by the number of undergrads who produce “nearly publishable” senior theses, not every Harvard student is happy to occupy the bottom quartile. Finally, what feels easy for some students is not easy for others, even in seemingly related fields.</p>
<p>My ECs were my whole life, and the reason I loved Harvard so much. I also graduated in the top 10% of my class. I appreciated the freedom I had to balance out my coursework so that every semester, I had some tougher classes and some easy ones. I especially appreciated the fact that it was my choice whether to do a thesis. If some students use that freedom to coast to graduation while devoting all their energy to the Crimson, it doesn’t trouble me.</p>