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Jessica's picture

The new curriculum may backfire..

Oops, sorry I posted without logging in.. So here' my take

I like that classes can be classified under two divisions under the new proposal. This allows the classes to be categorized as they truly are. With this and the new five requirements, I believe that the new curriculum will be much more flexible than the current curriculum, suiting students who are looking to explore new areas.

However, it also raises a concern--this proposal may backfire on the central mission of "exposing students to a variety of approaches to inquiry and promoting that liberal education must be more than a strong training in one discipline." For incoming freshmen, it is easy to take classes in what interested them in high school. The flexibility of the new curriculum may allow students to take classes around only a single discipline (especially with classes being classified under two labels). From my experience, the current curriculum, which has more solid requirements, gave me a stronger drive to take courses in humanities, a discipline that I am not really into. When I was in the process of choosing classes for second semester, I tried to avoid intense literature classes because I didn't find them very interesting. However, I had to fulfill the humanities requirement (Div III). So I was searching for classes and I almost chose a literature class on Physics. But I happened to come across Ethics (Philosophy) and Literature and Politics of South African Apartheid in my search, so I ended up registering for those! I think current curriculum gives a stronger push to explore different disciplines to freshmen, who would tend to choose their favorite subjects because of their awful high school classes. (In high school, most people's favorite classes depend on how much they like their teachers)

However, I agree with Hilary on foreign language requirement.

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