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Some skeptics who shopped 1504 decided to give Ben-Shahar a chance, enrolling in the class, despite some misgivings, in order to find out for themselves whether or not it deserves its reputation...
Listen to Jennifer L. Huang ’06, who says she joined Positive Psychology partly because she had spent the previous semester struggling with mental health: “I felt [Ben-Shahar] was really effective in the way he taught,” Huang says, recalling shopping week. “I felt like he wasn’t lecturing at you. He was like a therapist, talking about ways to improve your life...
...Ben-Shahar teaches you what you really need to know, in other words—stuff you can really use in your “day to day.” As Huang puts it, “most people think that it will be helpful. It’s not just some history class on ancient China.” Indeed, Ben-Shahar does not ask for much in the way of work, and he teaches his students that they are good enough (and smart enough) to overcome their problems. Most importantly, he tells them that a good, healthy...
...Even Ben-Shahar’s biggest fans agree that the workload for the class is nowhere near as intensive as it is in most Harvard courses. M. Alice Johnson ’06, for example, “liked that Professor Ben-Shahar admitted we wouldn’t be learning a lot of material.” But despite the light workload, Johnson continues, 1504 deserves to be taken seriously. “I’ve heard a few people say they didn’t take the class because it was too fluffy...
...Ben-Shahar says that his students read “the most rigorous research out there in the field of psychology,” even if the weekly page count is not as staggering as it might be in an average history course. But 1504 does have a reputation for being a gut class, which accounts for some portion of its record-breaking enrollment stats...