Class options overwhelm students

Students across campus will meet with advisers to select courses for the spring this week and next. Many already find their choices restricted by distribution requirements, departmental prerequisites and graduate school expectations. Some claim the process is painful, exciting, predictable or even scary. Analogies abound.

"It's like pulling teeth," complained Sherif Girgis '08, a 'Prince' staff member. "They tell you to try new things and 'indulge your passions,' because this is the only chance you'll get. But then you get an email from Career Services outlining a 'gameplan' for getting good internships."

Girgis is referring to "Major Choices," a catalog mailed to students and parents in October, featuring testimonials from alumni who majored in small departments. Administrators said they hoped the catalog would help persuade students to consider taking courses in subjects not familiar to them.

While many are heeding the advice in planning their spring schedules — Girgis, an intended physics major, is taking first-year Italian — others are sticking to preprofessional criteria.

"Since I'm an engineer I am really limited in the classes that I've taken," said Erinna Chen '06, a mechanical and aerospace engineering major.

B.S.E. candidates often complain that they in particular have little opportunity to explore courses outside of their discipline.

"I had wanted to study a foreign language," said Saed Shonnar '07, a chemical engineering major, "but in order to meet the requirements, I already have to take five courses this spring."

For those who have both the freedom and the desire to explore, however, some courses stand out.

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Among her favorites, Chen suggests John Gager's REL 251: The New Testament and Christian Origins. Informally titled "faith busters," the course explores the New Testament with a "critical eye," questioning many of its traditional interpretations. REL 281: Religions of India also gets high marks.

In the sciences, ELE 102: New Eyes for the World: Hands-On Optical Engineering is new this year. Open to all freshmen and sophomores, the lab course introduces students to practical topics in optics engineering, with an emphasis on understanding technologies students are likely to encounter in their daily lives. The course also provides a great opportunity for non-science majors to fulfill lab requirements, Rockefeller College Dean John Schoenwald said in an email.

The adventurous might also try David Billington's CEE 262/ARC 262: Structures and the Urban Environment. This month, Billington, one of the University's most senior faculty, received an award from the National Academy of Engineering for his teaching in another introductory engineering course, CEE 102: Engineering in the Modern World.

For those who like to travel, students in HLS 362: Athens: Representation of a Twentieth Century City will be "required" to travel to Athens during Spring Break. Would-be Hellenists can only be admitted to the class by application.

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If art sounds appealing, John Fleming suggests ART 332: The Landscape of Illusion: Garden and Landscape Architecture. The course explores images of the garden in Western culture, relating literature and history.

ART 101 is also widely recommended, but with the caveat that it requires a lot of reading and memorization.

Fleming also encourages ITA 304: Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso, taught by Simone Marchesi, one of the world's foremost Dante scholars.

In literature, ENG 315: Milton is essential, Fleming said. "Everybody, but everybody, should read Milton in depth at least once. Preferably twice," he said.

In an informal, unscientific poll conducted Tuesday evening via telephone, a majority of respondents had not yet decided on a final course list. Many anticipated last minute additions and changes of heart.

"I really don't know what's going to wind up in my schedule," Girgis said.