A classroom community

Firstly, that is not to say that it is impossible or even difficult to take classes in the humanities with friends and discuss the class together. But these are classes that I usually plan to take with people I am already friends with, and that’s exactly my point. I don’t have or at least haven’t seen the opportunity to make new friends in these humanities courses. I am forced to try to make sure someone I know will be in the class to begin with so that I can feel more comfortable and have someone to talk to about the class with (regarding both the readings and how adorable the professor’s sweater is).

So why does such a community or ability to make new friends exist in some courses and not in others? It does help that engineering majors are more likely to take a lot of classes together. But I think that it also has a lot to do with time spent working together without the professor present. Many people have a defined notion of how you are supposed to behave when a professor or even a grad student is around (for example a “speak only when spoken to but sound as smart as possible” sort of approach), but when it is just undergraduates, students becomes more relaxed and behave more like their normal selves. This climate is obviously much better for making new friends and for adding a general sense of community to the class. Communities are in many ways built on such a unity of purpose: We will complete this problem set together. It also allows small jokes and banter between problems, but there is no pressure to socialize — you are there for a reason, so you don’t have to becomes friends with everyone, which in my experience has paradoxically led to more organic friendships.

I argue that this capacity does not belong to science and math courses alone and is easily extended to all fields. In short, assign more group and partner assignments. I already think there are too few assignments in many humanities classes — my classes in history and normative ethics this semester have grades comprised of just two papers and class participation. So why not include in the curriculum a few assignments that can be done in small groups outside the classroom? I understand that it is fundamentally harder to do a joint paper than it is to do, for example, a partner programming assignment, but there are certain ways to make these assignments work. I know of classes where partners give weekly presentations on the week’s readings. Other classes have group research projects. If professors are creative, they can give opportunities to undergraduates to meet outside class.

I think this is as important for humanities courses as it is for science and math courses, if not more so. Many humanities courses are predicated on discussion — you need to be able to communicate effectively and thoroughly with the members of the class. This idea is what the precept system is predicated on. In my experience, even the people who have fiery discussions in precept will afterward leave without a word to each other. But when people know each other and are comfortable with each other, they are more likely to speak up and contribute creative ideas. Instead of being afraid of being the guy who’s always wrong or being the guy who talks too much (two monikers I know well), I can talk to the people in my class as Luke, and they can speak up as themselves. Sure, they might still think I talk too much and am wrong too often, and I might think the guy in the front is always off topic, but if we aren’t so depersonalized, we will be willing to open up and make meaningful contributions.

At the end of the day, we all spend a long time in our classes. Why should we be restricted to explicitly social activities in order to make friends and be part of a community? Academics and creating a community are too centrally important to the mission of this school to allow them to be so separate and distinct.

Luke Massa is a sophomore from Ridley Park, Pa. He can be reached at lmassa@princeton.edu.