Is yale curriculum flexible?

JHS
Mon, 15 Oct 2018 14:24:49 +0000

A million years ago, my 5 on AP French (which at that point was essentially what AP French Lit is today) and a five-minute interview with the French Department’s DUS got me into a 300-level literature course on French 19th Century novels. It was a superfantabulous course, one of the (many) highlights of my undergraduate education. It met the normal number of hours (3) per week, and required a lot of reading (of course) and some writing.

Waiting in line for 80 minutes to get that 5-minute interview was also a highlight of my time at Yale. Notwithstanding my AP class in high school, I had never met anyone else my age who gave a hoot about French literature, and all of a sudden I was in a whole crowd of them. We had all taken AP French the year before, so we had all read the same books. Some of them were women! It was as if I had died and woken up in heaven.

Notwithstanding my AP results, my French language skills were not that strong, as I’m sure was apparent in my interview. Nevertheless, no one made me take a level 4 or 5 language class.