Intersession should offer wider variety - It's only a game

Intersession needs a lot of work. This year, the course offerings are as bare as ever, not including the exotic vacations, excuse me, classes, that cost multiple thousands of dollars.

Not only are the offerings on the skimpy side, but most of the classes that actually take place on the Homewood campus and have no additional charges are not being taught by Hopkins professors. Rather, graduate students are doing the regular fill-in duty for classes that faculty members should be teaching.

The concept of an intersession in which students can focus on one class in traditional or non-traditional subjects has my utmost support. But the current situation leaves much to be desired.

I have previously participated in two of the "experiential learning" courses, which I enjoyed a great deal. Though they did have charges for an overnight networking trip to New York City, I felt they were well worth the expense.

But these courses have limited enrollments and are forced to conduct lotteries every year to determine which students can participate in them.

In order for Intersession to be completely inclusive, every undergraduate student should have the opportunity to take at least one class. As things currently stand, the class offerings at Homewood in Janurary which have no charge can offer space in total to no more than 400 students.

There are 4,000 undergraduates at Johns Hopkins. Granted, not everyone of them wants to take an Intersession class. But every year there are plenty of students who want to participate, but are unable to gain access to them, let alone afford them.

Hopkins has to start offering more courses during Intersession so that any student can participate. Departments that don't offer any classes are skirting their responsibilites.

The Italian department has been smart to offer condensed intro-to-Italian classes during Intersession. Why can't other language programs offer the same thing? Where is Intro to French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese or Russian?

Many departments that attract a low amount of majors would also be smart to increase their Intersession offerings. Why doesnt' the English department offer an American Literature class? What about Near Eastern Studies offering an archeology course? What about a Film class on the movies of some auteur?

I recomend that the university requires each department to offer at least one three-credit course each Intersession to be taught by a full-time faculty member.

If each department rotates this responsibility among their professors, no one will have to teach in Januray more than once every 10 years.

This will also give every student a chance to take a class in a subject they may not know anything about.

In order to make it inclusive, we need more classes on the Homewood campus that have no additional cost and that are taught by our own faculty. Only then, will Intersession have succeeded in its mission.

Ishai Mooreville is a junior International Studies major from Merion, PA. He is also the Opinions Editor for the Johns Hopkins News-Letter.