Should Brown offer a 3-year BA/BS?

PAGRok
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 20:53:59 +0000

@mgcsinc the UChicago and Columbia liberal arts Core methods may be old and traditional, but do not say they are “fixed” or “tired”. They revolve classical texts and themes but debate within my classes within the Core for humanities and civilization studies have extended into highly relevant matters of the modern world, we have stretched Aristotle’s view of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics to a debate on what friendship is now to us due to technology and connection through Facebook. We have talked about the political ramifications for laws and policies that were just made through analyzing the French Revolution in my civilizations course. These courses aren’t rigid and boring, they are enlightening and incredibly interesting if you are there, in class, debating the reasoning behind Rousseau’s The Social Contract or Dante’s Inferno.

@iwannabeBrown UChicago’s core requirements are offered in wide range of courses. The humanities requirements has 8 different themes (media and art, to greek thought and literature, to philosophy, language, culture), the Civilization Studies requirement has a great deal of choices, the Social Sciences requirement has a broad 5 categories. Anyone can find classes, even if they aren’t humanities folk, that they like and are interested in. People are “forced” into taking a certain requirement, but the specific class they take is up to them. Yes of course there are people who don’t like to Englishy courses, but they come to UChicago knowing the value of great comprehension and writing skills as well as the skills gained from all the other Core requirements. We willingly force ourselves into the courses of the Core because we know the benefit in them, so though some may be displeased towards certain classes they may not enjoy, they still know that being in that class is good for them. I’d easily say my education is enriched by the science students in my humanities courses, and the econ majors in my Civilizations course. In this way, the Core brings together students from all majors and ensures that all students are receiving a strong, liberal-arts education without any holes because someone doesn’t like a certain area.