Judging from his recent column ("Apologia pro studio suo," March 10), Brendan Carroll '11 would probably also enjoy the core curriculum. In this column, he extensively espouses the value of studying the humanities, going so far as to argue that every Princeton student ought to enroll in the Humanities Sequence (HUM 216-219), the four-course introduction to the Western tradition that represents the closest thing at Princeton to Columbia's "core."
Though I think it's wonderful that Princeton offers the HUM sequence, I must respectfully disagree with Carroll's argument that every student ought to pursue it. The interests of most students would not be served by coerced participation in rigorous study of texts that they may feel are dull or irrelevant. It's perfectly within the rights of any student to find a subject boring, and the University need not go through pains to convince a student that he actually does enjoy a subject that he has little interest in.
Carroll goes on to explain what he perceives as the superior value of humanistic study: "A liberal education - that education worthy of a "liber," a free man (or woman) - deals with the ends of life, not the means to living it, and is consequently higher in nature than all other studies." In short, because Carroll defines the liberal education as an end rather than a means, its elevated status is instantly justified. This argument is inescapably circular: Nowhere does Carroll specify what the ends of life are. He instead limits his definition of a "liberal education" to that which is, by virtue of being an end rather than a means, automatically "higher."
Rather than contemplate what constitutes higher and lower scholarship, I'll simply contend that the role of education is to serve two interests that every student has: learning new material and learning how to learn. The first goal is most efficiently accomplished when the student pursues study in a field that interests him. A student passionate about neuroscience but uninterested in literature will likely get more out of reading a biology textbook than slogging through ancient drama. Fulfilling the second goal, however, is more complicated, because it necessarily entails learning how to think in a wide variety of ways. This is why we have distribution requirements: to expose every student to analytic methods in disciplines separate from his own.
I believe that distribution requirements, not a core curriculum, are the best way to promote a liberal education. Each distribution requirement represents a way of thinking, and by taking appealing courses in each area the student becomes accustomed to new perspectives from which to evaluate interesting questions. The benefits of a broad education are conferred without the stress of having to sit through an uninteresting core class.
This brings me to a point on which Carroll and I unquestionably agree, albeit from somewhat different perspectives: There are gaps in a Princeton education. One of the most egregious gaps is that it is possible to graduate without ever having taken a course that emphasizes the scientific method. A student who fulfills the lab requirement through something like CEE 105: Lab in Conservation of Art probably isn't learning that much about the natural world and our empirical relationship with it. Students in the sciences are sometimes just as guilty of finding ways around the distribution requirements. Many choose to take classes in the history or philosophy of science rather than broadening their horizons to include something new.
Toward the end of his column, Carroll briefly discusses the utility of studying the humanities. One of his points is that this form of education "trains the mind in a habit of curiosity, which will outlast the initial studies that set such a habit in motion." Carroll and I are in agreement on this point, but I wouldn't limit the scope of this sentiment to just the humanities. Indeed, any education, regardless of the subject matter studied, should ideally have this end.
It is because our university recognizes that different students have different ways of reaching this goal that students of all academic persuasions flourish here. Valuing academic standardization above academic free will would not serve the interests of all students and could dampen the lifelong curiosity that education should be molding.
Michael Medeiros is a sophomore from Bethesda, Md. He can be reached at mmedeiro@princeton.edu.
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