One of the most defining parts of any university is its undergraduate curriculum and the types of courses it requires for graduation. Curriculums can vary in breath, depth and subjects. The best curriculums give their students a well-rounded education that prepares them for almost any career they could conceivably plan to pursue.
Hopkins's current curriculum, however, fails to lend any sort of cohesive or structured meaning to the overall education of a student. Nor does it have any inherent attraction for prospective students. Hopkins should look at two different universities for examples at how to design an attractive and effective curriculum: Columbia and Brown.
Most colleges require some sort of distribution among the humanities (English, history), social sciences (political science, economics) and natural sciences (biology, physics). Johns Hopkins current curriculum requires students to take approximately 10 classes (out of a required 40), in academic fields outside their major. They also must take 4 courses deemed "writing intensive" (courses that require at least 20 pages of writing over the semester).
Unfortunately, these requirements, while good in their intentions, do not necessarily lead to well-rounded graduates or applicants.
The random assortment of electives we take outside of our major rarely amount to any unified body of knowledge. We may learn about some of the basics of psychology, the history of ancient China, or how to write basic fiction and poetry, but we may never read or learn anything about major ideas in philosophy or literature or science.
Columbia University has devised an ingenious solution to this problem. In 1919 they developed a famed "core curriculum" (still in use) in which students take classes with predetermined reading lists of "great books" in the history of man. These books have been determined to be among the most influential in their respective fields, like Homer's Iliad in literature or Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in economics. These authors' ideas have shaped the course of history and of mankind, so it seems reasonable to me that Columbia requires its students to read them.
There are some disadvantages to Columbia's curriculum. Students do have a reduced amount of choice and there is some loss of intellectual diversity. But in order to really appreciate the wider spectrum of knowledge and ideas, one has to have a firm grip on certain fundamentals of the field. Is it possible to really understand Toni Morrison or William Faulkner without having read Sophocles or Shakespeare? Can we understand modern concepts of power and politics without having read Machiavelli or Marx?
Columbia's program assumes that if we are ignorant of the sources of modern knowledge, we will never be able to really understand it.
The creation of a freshman seminar entitled "Great Books" is a step in the right direction. It at least gives a limited amount of students the ability to discuss and study certain classic texts in a formal way.
Brown University, on the other end of the spectrum, has no requirements at all, excepting those for any particular major. While I have certain reservations about having no requirements whatsoever, Brown University has succeeded in attracting students who are very open-minded to new ideas and willing to venture into new and varied subjects.
By removing all boundaries and rules, Brown has actually forced its students to become more proactive in planning their educations and in formulating their own curriculum.
The obvious advantage of having no requirements is that no student has to take a class they have no interest in. Therefore, it should follow that every class is composed only of students who are interested in its subject material, and are therefore more likely to participate in class discussions, do the required readings, and be more in engaged in what they are being taught.
Both Columbia and Brown's curriculums give us two widely divergent examples of how to create a successful and efficient education. Hopkins' curriculum lies somewhere in between the two: it has some requirements, but no real "core" curriculum.
In attempting to be both, it succeeds at neither. If this university wishes to attract and produce a more motivated and better-educated student, it must decide to fully commit to one route or the other.
Ishai Mooreville is a junior international studies major from Merion, Pa. He is also the opinions editor for the Johns Hopkins News-Letter.
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