Word: 10a
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Professors should also post syllabi (or at least reading lists) earlier. This will allow students to search for cheaper alternatives online and in the used markets before classes start. Case in point: the syllabus and reading list for History 10a were posted the first day of class, leaving students scrambling to the nearest, and most expensive, book merchants to fill up their shelves. Submitting reading lists earlier could even help the Coop keep prices lower by allowing longer lead times for its staff to negotiate with distributors and to buy back books from students...
Though only a meager few introductory courses (including History 10a: Western Societies, Politics, and Cultures from Antiquity to 1650) admit it outright in their course titles, nearly all intro courses at Harvard focus on the West. Social Studies 10, Historical Studies A-12, English 10a (and 10b), Ec 10, and Justice, to name a few, stick only to the intellectual, political, historical, and economic achievements of Eurasia and North America (plus the Near East and North Africa during ancient times...
...intro courses to Core courses (true, Ec 10 and A-12 are also Cores) and youll find more than one significant difference. For one, Cores are much more focused. They purport to teach modes of thought rather than provide a broad background in the topic itself. The aforementioned History 10a, a broad introduction to Western history, counts for the same Core credit as a class on the Cuban Revolution. Additionally, many of these Cores treat non-Western subject matters. These two differences seem to pose a bit of an internal contradiction. More likely than not, your department wont...
...wrong to critique the conceptual basis of History 10a, for its probable goal is not to take a historiographical stance, but instead to fill the minds of all participants with the dates when Caesar was killed, Charlemagne crowned, and Columbus welcomed to the Caribbean. Such a pathetically humble goal can in fact be accomplished by reading a history textbook or two and should take no more than a week. In an undergraduate curriculum, it can be achieved in more imaginative ways, such as through a distributional requirement: one could, for instance, expect concentrators to take a pre-1500 class...
...History 10a cannot be reformed and should be simply abolished. One year ago to this day, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History Steven E. Ozment, then course head for History 10a, lamented that, even at Harvard, few undergraduates study anything prior to the 19th century. Perhaps removing the rudiments of “Western Civilization”-style teaching, which makes studying the ancient past unnecessarily boring, will improve that situation. It might also halt the flow of students moving from History to other concentrations. Incidentally, a distributional requirement would automatically increase the attendance of pre-modern courses. Freshmen...