My friends in high school all joked (and still joke) about one teacher who ceased to care much about grades sometime in the late ’90s. The teacher in question described his views on student assessment as “holistic.” Needless to say, the day class assignments were released, students across the district kept their fingers crossed, praying to be placed in his class. To further complicate the stakes, this teacher taught a class required to graduate.
Now that I am in college, course selection has fundamentally changed the game. I no longer have to stick to a largely pre-ordained and intractable barrage of courses that my district wisely chose for me. Students who hated math and science, the English language or general academic rigor could avoid their demons and move on to greener lecture halls with lower expectations. During the first week of the term, layup lists circulate among teams and social groups, teaching students how to achieve a Dartmouth degree while facing minimal challenge.
To clarify, a layup is a class that, like an easy unchallenged shot in basketball, requires one to merely go through practiced motions to score. In general, these Dartmouth courses promise high median grades, little to no mandatory homework, few assessments and a large class size that discourages individual attention or participation. Attendance in certain notorious layups regularly dips below 50 percent of students. Further, anyone sitting in the back of such a class would see a startling majority of students browsing Facebook newsfeeds, responding to emails or, in rare cases, watching Netflix.
Repeatedly taking layup courses distorts the purpose of a liberal arts education. In a school where literally hundreds of courses are offered on virtually every academic subject, it is a shame that courses exist that do little to challenge students. The truth is students can and will avoid difficulty outside their major by sticking to classes that expect little commitment and work.
I understand why layups exist. In large survey classes that attempt to introduce students to a discipline gradually, a gentler touch is sometimes needed to garner interest. Also, I assume that many professors do not want their classrooms to be hives of stress and competition. In these scenarios, it benefits both the student and the department that offers the class to promise higher grades and zero pressure.
That said, I think students should approach easy classes with caution. The point of a liberal arts education is to expose minds to concepts and challenges that are outside students’ comfort zones and force students to think in a manner that comes neither easily nor naturally. Dartmouth mandates distributive requirements for this reason. Students must fill 10 classes out of the 35 needed to graduate with various disciplines and subjects that do not necessarily conform to their major or field of interest. Distributive requirements exist to honor the purpose of a liberal arts education, yet each term during course election the same mad scramble occurs. Students try to enroll in the easiest courses offered and avoid real encounters with new material.
The use of the non-recording option as a way to attain credits without exerting any difficulty further cheapens the value of a course. The NRO exists to take anxiety away from genuinely interested students who want to try hard classes but do not want to see their GPAs tank if things do not go well. Unfortunately, the NRO is also used as a challenge-avoiding measure. Students often use NROs as a safeguard to slack off without worrying about having to bear the consequences on their transcripts.
While the value of an undergraduate education does not lie exclusively in books and lectures, you should resist the temptation to divorce education and academic rigor from your goals during your four years in Hanover. Yet, you are here primarily to learn — not to make friends, win championships or avoid stress. These four years mark perhaps the last time that you will be able to learn about things that are not easily encountered outside of academia. With that in mind, avoid selecting classes based on median grades or the number of assessments, and instead consider how much you will grow both as a person and an intellectual by taking that course.
