Easy labs do little to educate
On Tuesday, a Harvard committee of students, faculty and administrators, concluded that in the future students would be expected to study abroad and take more science classes in an effort to adapt the University curriculum to the 21st Century.While study abroad programs are quickly become the new academic "must" for the university student, an idea slowly becoming embraced by the Princeton community, what is more surprising is the intended increase in the number of science classes required for graduation.The committee said that every student should be "educated in the sciences in a manner that is a as deep and broadly shared as has traditionally been the case in the humanities and social sciences." Students should be able to "understand the news and expository articles in journals such as Science and Nature."As Harvard President Lawrence Summers told the New York Times, "an educational culture where it's an embarrassment to not know the names of five plays by Shakespeare but OK not to know the difference between a gene and a chromosome isn't functional."While I agree that there should be an increased scientific awareness an undergraduate student body, from my experience at Princeton, I question Harvard's conclusion that broad-based survey science courses are no longer sufficient.I would argue that survey courses should remain, but should address more current scientific-issue related survey courses are what are needed.