Four years ago, a user on a subreddit for Princeton asked, “What are some easy but interesting distribution requirement fillers for LA, SA, EM, EC? I’m basically asking for the humanities side of ‘rocks for jocks.’”
This sentiment remains widespread at Princeton. During course selection periods, I often encounter inquiries on apps like Reddit or Fizz about easy classes to fulfill Princeton’s distribution requirements.
It’s time we say the quiet part out loud: many Princeton students are gaming the system. Rather than exploring the foundations and methodologies of a broad range of disciplines, they’re engineering the narrowest possible encounters with classes outside of their comfort zone and interests. This is understandable — when confronted with a myriad of distribution requirements, busy students are inclined to take the easy way out, entering classes with the goal of checking a box on their path to graduation. But to prevent the promise of a liberal arts education from ringing hollow, the University needs to encourage more substantial engagement across the disciplines. They can do this by providing students with a more structured set of foundational classes across diverse fields.
Princeton prides itself on offering a liberal arts education, and the general distribution requirements — in addition to the writing seminar and language requirement — are central to this mission. A.B. students must take at least one course across eight different areas, for a total of at least 10 courses. B.S.E. students must take courses in at least four distribution areas, with a total of seven required.
These requirements are designed to ensure that, regardless of major, students are exposed to a multitude of subjects and ways of thinking. As the University academic advising page states, “More than a set of requirements, the general education requirements offer you the chance to develop both intellectual rigor and humility by considering the possibilities and limitations of all forms of academic inquiry.”
This is a compelling vision. But mere exposure to these disciplines is not enough to produce an interdisciplinary education, nor does it encourage students to experience models of “academic inquiry” in fields beyond their major. How students fulfill these requirements matters just as much as the requirements themselves. In practice, many students do not take these requirements seriously — and the University does little to ensure that they do. The motivation behind general education requirements should be to ensure that students gain foundational knowledge across a wide range of fields and methodologies rather than float through surface-level exploration for the purposes of fulfilling requirements.
When left on their own, students seek the path of least resistance. This often leads them to classes with niche rather than foundational approaches to their discipline, as a way to avoid immersion in unfamiliar material. For example, a student may take FRS 139: The Coming of Driverless Cars to fulfill a Social Analysis requirement rather than a foundational course like POL 220: American Politics or PSY 252: Social Psychology, both of which introduce core theories and methodologies of social analysis. Others may take CEE 102B: Engineering in the Modern World, colloquially known as “Bridges,” to satisfy the Science and Engineering with lab (SEL) requirement instead of introductory physics — courses that build critical technical skills through problem sets and cumulative exams.
These more niche courses can be intellectually rewarding when taken out of genuine curiosity, but they are increasingly used as an “easy way out” to fulfilling a distribution requirement. I have heard fellow first-years refer to these courses as nothing more than “an easy fifth” or “a GPA booster.”
One solution would be to restrict which courses can fulfill each distribution requirement. Princeton should draw from similar systems at peer universities like Columbia University, whose Core Curriculum establishes a restricted set of courses with more general content to fulfill required disciplines. Princeton could adapt and implement this program by providing students with a select few choices for each distribution, much like how major electives are chosen from a pre-approved list. Some areas might require dedicated foundational courses — perhaps modeled after the Princeton Writing Seminar — designed to build core competencies in areas such as quantitative reasoning or social analysis.
A more extreme proposal would be to require engineering and natural science students to minor in the humanities or social sciences, and vice versa. This would mandate and thus generate deep interdisciplinary engagement from students, providing them with substantive understanding of the methodology and knowledge in another field. The University could alternatively establish a new program with a smaller course load than a minor that still generates substantial engagement with a field and require students to choose one from outside their primary field of study. This would be a more honest model of what it means to be “exposed” to a discipline.
At the same time, existing distribution categories could remain in place but with higher standards for what qualifies. For instance, Literature and the Arts (LA) or Historical Analysis (HA) courses might be required to culminate in a substantial research or writing project, while QCR courses would need to engage directly with established STEM methodologies rather than apply minor quantitative framing to humanities topics. Such reforms would preserve breadth and the possibility for a more specific path of exploration while ensuring that distribution requirements deliver the intellectual rigor they are meant to provide.
But whether Princeton ultimately adopts a sweeping reform or a less radical readjustment, what matters most is recognizing that distribution requirements cannot simply exist on paper. Until Princeton demands that its general education requirements be fulfilled with the substantive intellectual engagement they are designed to promote, many students will continue to check boxes rather than build breadth and depth. A liberal arts education that can be shallowly customized is not a liberal arts education at all.
Emily Zhang ’29 is an Opinion columnist for The Daily Princetonian. She is a B.S.E. student from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and can be reached at ez5618[at]princeton.edu.
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