Genius comes in many forms

"You're a MAT/ELE/etc. major? Wow, you must be smart."

So the tired old line goes. Most science and engineering majors like myself have heard conventional wisdom expressed this way. Though some of them may enjoy this attention and even invite it sometimes, for me it is exasperating and suggestive of a deeper problem. It is reckless to judge a person solely by the three letters under his or her picture in the facebook. It is also troubling that certain fields seem to be less respected for no apparent reason. This is unfortunate, since the world needs talented people in all areas. What would happen to "Princeton in the Nation's Service" if everyone decided that they wanted to be engineers and science majors? Who would do translations, interpret literature, make public policy and contemplate human nature? Surely these undertakings are just as important as designing microchips and conducting physics experiments.

The condescending attitude of some students in science and engineering toward the humanities is entirely unjustified. The most challenging class I have taken at Princeton was not a departmental in physics, math or computer science, but a history class I took for my HA requirement. That class forced me to grow in ways others had not and helped me realize that the difficulty of a class depends more on students' individual characteristics than on a particular department's reputation.

Those who would artificially elevate science and engineering should note that their beginnings were dependent on the flowering of the humanities during the Renaissance. Virtually all branches of science were practiced by philosophers before being recognized as separate fields. In this spirit, we should recognize that scholarship in all its forms is about pursuing knowledge of ourselves and of the world. It is unproductive to have an unusually high or low regard for someone solely because of their particular methods of scholarly inquiry.

The University should address this 'departmental discrimination' by promoting communication between students and faculty in different fields. Of particular concern should be the consistently disproportionate number of academic awards given to students with majors in science and engineering. This is a larger and more serious symptom of the tendency to ascribe greater intellectual prowess to these students relative to their counterparts in the humanities and social sciences.

Though there is no official record of the winners of academic awards given by the University, that information can be found in the Commencement programs from years past, which are available in Mudd Library. Their message is unambiguous.

Among all of Princeton's Valedictorians since 1986, not one has majored in a department outside of math, science or engineering. In the same period of time, only one student outside these departments has re-ceived the Class of 1939 Prin-ceton Scholar Award — an award for general academic ach-ievement which can be given to a student in any field.

Among the recipients of the George B. Wood Legacy Junior Prize, given to seniors in any department for work during the junior year, only about one in five have had majors outside of math, science and engineering.

Although they are not exhaustive, these numbers clearly show that students in math, science and engineering, who typically make up only about 40 percent of undergraduates, are receiving more than their share of academic honors. I do not doubt that these students are doing great things and that there are genuinely spectacular minds among them. However, I refuse to believe that the achievements of the other 60 percent are any less impressive — they too survived Dean Hargadon's trial by fire.

Part of the problem seems to be a fundamental difference in grading philosophies. For example, in science and engineering, it is often the case that if a student's work is the best in the class or is publishable, then it receives an A+. By contrast, even highly interesting and original work in the humanities might not even receive an A. One might say that grading is tougher in A.B. departments since extremely high grades are not handed out nearly as often as they are in B.S.E. departments.

Furthermore, in science and engineering, it is often relatively straightforward to identify excellent work and recognize a great mind at a young age. In the humanities, by contrast, things are not so cut-and-dry; intellectual maturity is less tangible and can take longer to develop.

Indeed, most major breakthroughs in math and science have been made by relatively young people, who quickly become established, whereas usually the reputation of a historian or novelist is gradually built up over an entire career. Since Princeton's academic awards are given on the basis of only four years of work while students are relatively young, it is easy to see that those in science and engineering will be favored.

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West College has considered these issues and has taken steps to make the system fairer. In particular, it is hoped that the recent replacement of the "A+" with the "A*" will help to standardize grading across departments by requiring that an explanatory statement accompany a perfect grade. This change should allow more accurate comparisons between A*s given by different professors for whom the grade may have qualitatively different meanings.

However, even with the new system, there will still remain irreconcilable differences in grading philosophies and definitions of excellence. This is an issue about which members of the University community should engage in thoughtful discussion and debate. It may be that academic honors will never be awarded fairly to students in different departments. However, as long as we spend more time learning than worrying about getting our names all over the Commencement programs, the University will have succeeded in its mission. Eric Harkleroad is a physics major from Overland Park, KS. He can be reached at eharkler@princeton.edu.