Word: folk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...truth is, Harvard has a serious prejudice against the humanities and an even stronger prejudice against the less-canonized humanities, like Folk and Myth or Film Studies (which doesn't even exist as a concetnration). Let me amend this: Harvard has a serious prejudice against anything that brings immediate pleasure to the academic and doesn't follow an established path to future success. Computer science concentrators have their Microsoft jobs lined up. Biochemistry concentrators proceed directly to medical school. And if it doesn't have that kind of destined security, at least the English concentration has "centuries of academic respectability...
...many of the key figures in the study of the humanities (Francis James Child and Albert Lord, for example) helped to found Harvard's Folk and Myth department. Folk and Myth might not directly help a student get into a good medical school, but it fosters an appreciation of other cultures and their influence on the development of Western civilization. And it might even add something to the quest for knowledge for knowledge's sake...
...even had a number of people tell me: "Folk and Myth. Yeah, I almost did that, but I decided not to, just because I couldn't bear the thought of concentrating in something called 'Folklore and Mythology...
...look at Social Studies. It sounds like sixth grade geography. And yet, Social Studies concentrators have the roughest sophomore tutorial around. Folk and Myth doesn't even have the Faculty numbers, budget and status within the College to be a department; technically it's a Committee on Undergraduate Degrees. If Folk and Myth wasn't ridiculed half as much by the Harvard community, don't you think there'd be more first-years choosing it as a concentration...
...frustration with the second-tier treatment of Folk and Myth as a concentration reflects greater trouble in the mind of the average Harvard College student. But ultimately, for most of Harvard, "I enjoy what I study" does not outweigh "it's useful for the future...