History Major at Penn?

45_Percenter
Tue, 08 Aug 2017 14:54:37 +0000

@Cue7, having a child who graduated as a Humanities major from Penn within the past couple of years, having attended there myself as an undergrad a few decades ago, and having known many liberal arts majors in the College through both my own and my child’s experiences at Penn, I really think you’re exaggerating how different the academic experience of a liberal arts major is at Penn compared to other top schools. Yes, at many of the other top schools a liberal arts major can’t supplement his curriculum with a course or two in Wharton, Nursing, or the Law School, and he may not have Wharton, Engineering, or Nursing students in some of his introductory classes, but a Penn liberal arts major will still be taking a good number of more advanced courses in his major field that are populated almost exclusively by fellow majors or majors in related fields. And in the case of the more popular liberal arts majors, he’ll be in a fairly large group of fellow majors in the Junior and Senior classes (anywhere from about 40 to about 280 students in the 15 most popular majors using the numbers in post #11), and have a selection of a significant number and variety of faculty and courses in his major. And his liberal arts experience in general, and in his major in particular, will be no less rigorous, intense, or comprehensive than it would be at any other peer school. And just as he may have some Wharton, Engineering, or Nursing students in some of his more general or introductory classes, so too will an English or History major at Brown, Harvard, or Princeton have Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, or Math majors–many of whom are pre-med, pre-law, pre-MBA, or even, especially in the case of Wall Street feeders like Harvard and Princeton, pre-investment banking or management consulting–in his introductory or more general classes.

The academic experience is just not that much different for one of the 200 or so Biology or Political Science majors, or the 100 or so English or History majors, who are in Penn’s College at any given time. And the economic realities and employment prospects of life beyond their current undergraduate liberal arts curriculum are just as pressing and influential for English and History majors at Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Duke, etc. as they are for English and History majors at Penn, irrespective of whether they have Bio, Physics, Math, Econ, Engineering, or even Finance and Nursing majors in their introductory classes and extra-curricular and social activities. At least that’s been my experience based on my own and my friends’ and classmates’ time at Penn, as well as that of my child and her friends and classmates.

I think the bottom line is that each top school has its own unique atmosphere and “vibe,” although all of these schools are large, diverse, and complex enough to provide a wide variety of undergraduate experiences. And certainly the atmosphere at Penn is colored by the presence of Wharton and Nursing and Engineering, and the additional extra-curricular activities and on-campus recruiting that those schools bring. But an English, History, Biology or Sociology major at Penn–or even an Anthropology, Music, Art History, or Cinema Studies major at Penn–can submerse herself in a rich environment of numerous and diverse faculty, classes, research opportunities, extracurriculars, and graduate school, internship, and career opportunities, all in or related to her liberal arts major, and be surrounded by tens if not hundreds of fellow majors doing the same. Just as vigorously as she could at Harvard, Brown, Princeton, or Duke. And many Penn liberal arts majors do just that.