Certifiable

Meet your average Joe. Joe's a philosophy major. You might not know Joe, but you can safely assume that he wears a lot of black. He sits under trees smoking cigarettes and meditates. Joe has no idea what he wants to do when or if he graduates. You might not have known, though, that Joe also has a keen interest in art history — which is convenient, because he's already got the "black clothes" thing going for him.

Wouldn't it be nice for Joe to have an art history certificate to go along with his philosophy major, so that the people at the graduate school, investment bank or unemployment line will see how dedicated he was to two specific pursuits, instead of how he floated aimlessly among many?

Of course it would.

But Joe has a problem. There's an art history department, and one can concentrate in it, but Joe's first love is philosophy. There is no art history certificate. It can't be had. There's a visual arts certificate, true, but Joe has the artistic ability of a five-year-old — an artistically talent-less five-year-old. Who cares about the certificate? Why not just take a bunch of courses in art history anyway?

Joe cares. And Joe doesn't want to take art courses for his own edification. Not because he doesn't like the courses, mind you — he loves art. But Joe needs to get good grades, or if not, at least do things that will show up and look good on his transcript. Sure, like most of us, Joe wants to grow intellectually while at Princeton, but he knows that a larger picture exists. So Joe has to prioritize his philosophy papers over his art studies, and when it comes time to memorize 200 slides for an art final, the philosophy exam looming the next day will take precedence.

Disheartened, Joe will either stop taking art courses or, perhaps, use three or four of his pass/D/fails. Neither resort would help him at all in the grad school or job markets.

But what if Joe could have been working toward a certificate by taking his art course. Wouldn't his priorities, logically, have been different? Wouldn't he have made a point of memorizing those slides? And then as a result, when Joe left school — his transcript reading "Major: Philosophy. Minor: Art History" — wouldn't he be better suited to get a job? Wait a minute — of course not. Philosophy and art history? Who are we kidding? But at least it would look like he dedicated himself to one or two things, instead of just coasting or p/D/f-ing, and he'll have a certificate on his transcript to show for it.

So why do you care? You probably have no interest in art history or philosophy for that matter, right? Well, maybe you're an engineer, interested in learning a lot about musical theory without confining yourself to the nuances and nuisances of a certificate program in, for instance, Jewish studies.

Maybe you don't just want to listen to Jewish music, read Jewish literature and study Judaism all together — I wouldn't either, and I'm Jewish. Maybe you aren't broadly interested in Medieval, Hellenic, African or Russian studies either, but want to study a certain aspect — say, the music — of all four. Well you can't, at least not with anything tangible to show for it on your record.

This University, for better or worse, largely turns out graduates who leap directly into graduate school or the job market looking for immediate results. But by not offering certificate programs in every department, Princeton is stifling intellectual experimentation. The University is coming perilously close to producing 1,100 clones per year — half engineers, half politics majors — who dare not venture into departments with which they are unfamiliar for fear of a poor grade.

Now maybe our Joe is different. Maybe intellectual curiosity will win out, and he'll indeed take art history each semester, even incorporating his passion for it into his thesis. But he will be going against the norm and making life more difficult for himself. Princeton students ought to be able to minor in any department they want. Why not? Who would it hurt? It wouldn't require hiring new teachers or adding new courses — it's almost just a formality.

President Shapiro's successor, whoever you are — are you listening? Dan Wachtell is a philosophy major from Rye, N.Y. He can be reached at wachtell@princeton.edu.