There are two paths from which any Dartmouth sophomore must choose. One is a road of leisure, of plentiful extracurriculars and grades boosted by participation. The other is one of hardship and darkness, of all-nighters, never-ending lab reports and low median grades on exams. These paths diverge when the student is forced to pick a major: Will it be natural sciences, or the social sciences and humanities?
There is a reason they call them the "hard" sciences. As a friend who had recently abandoned a major in mathematics put it, "Math classes at Dartmouth, are, like, really, really hard."
For those who have experienced both natural and social science classes on this campus, it is quite clear that the distinction between the two is not simply in topic, but also in rigor and intensity. Take, for example, the difference between Chemistry 5 and Government 5, two introductory classes. Chem 5 holds class four times a week plus labs, and has eight lab reports over the course of the term, two midterms and a final. Government 5, on the other hand while assigning lots of reading holds class just three days a week, and requires students to take a two midterms and submit a final paper.
It is an unequivocal fact that the natural sciences demand more of students than most classes in the social sciences and humanities. Students of the formal sciences are expected to put more time into their studies, both inside and outside of the classroom. And if learning is a product of the amount of time students put into a topic of study, which I think it is, then it seems that students of the hard sciences are getting more out of their formal studies than the rest of us.
Further, classes in the natural sciences build on the prerequisites in ways that the humanities and social sciences do not. For instance, a pre-med student cannot take organic chemistry without a firm grasp on the fundamentals of chemistry and biology. However, upper-level courses like "The Rise of the Novel" in the English department or "Primate Societies" in the anthropology department are more self-contained; students are required to have little prior knowledge of the subject area before enrolling in these courses. While exposure to different subjects and areas of study are important, progression of study allows for in-depth, critical thinking skills that cannot be attained through a non-linear path of study.
And therein lies the deepest chasm between the natural sciences and other disciplines. To get into an upper-level physics course, a student must have fulfilled five prerequisites, yet we allow an English major to take a course on Milton without first taking a course on literary criticism, or 17th Century Literature or epic poetry this is true throughout the humanities and social sciences. That same student can enroll in "The Rise of the Novel" next term and never build on the lessons learned in the Milton course. After four years of bouncing around, course-to-course, the student is left with a hodgepodge of knowledge and a bookshelf of interesting reads. The physicist, upon graduation, is qualified to enter the discourse of physics or astronomy research because of the sturdy foundation that has built during his time at Dartmouth.
Critics will say that I am comparing apples to oranges, that natural science must be studied in a progressive, linear fashion, while the humanities and social sciences are learned best through horizontal study, by allowing Milton to cross-pollinate with Hawthorne and Thoreau and Dickens. Yet even if the teaching styles are not exactly the same, the College is failing students of the humanities and social sciences by not demanding the same level of academic intensity, and the progression of study, as departments of the natural sciences.
The economics department at Dartmouth provides a model that the social sciences and humanities might consider adopting. Majors are allowed to choose between sequences of classes that they are to study. Students must choose a sequence of courses that build off one another. This linear model of study is absent in majors where students are allowed to devise a major by taking classes in random, incoherent order.
As a student who majors in the social sciences, I do not in any way intend to denigrate study at Silsby, Carson, Reed or Dartmouth Hall. Yet there is, unfortunately, a great imbalance at the College between the natural sciences and everything else. Until the humanities and social sciences adopt and adapt the rigorous, structured model posed by the natural sciences, a diploma of physics and one of English will never hold the same weight.
