This year marks the end of the trial period for Frontiers of Science, the first-year science requirement for those in Columbia College. The broad goal of Frontiers of Science, added to the Core Curriculum five years ago, is to train students to think and problem-solve like scientists and to help them understand the natural world.
The Core could not claim to provide a well rounded education if it did not include an introductory first-year science course. As students at a premier research institution, Columbia undergraduates have the unique opportunity to learn from professors who truly are at the frontier of scientific research. For the past five years, Frontiers has sought to place greater weight on science in Columbia’s humanities-heavy Core Curriculum, and the course continues to boast a sound theoretical justification for its inclusion in the Core.
The challenge for Frontiers, though, lies in creating a general preliminary science course that provides students with essential scientific knowledge while still introducing them to cutting-edge research. This is a difficult balance to maintain, especially when students enter Columbia with varying backgrounds in science.
Having received a large number of negative course reviews from students, the Frontiers faculty is well aware of the course’s unpopularity, and it is constantly tweaking the curriculum to respond to the student evaluations. As a result, every semester of Frontiers over the past five pilot years has essentially been part of a trial run, and the ever-changing Frontiers curriculum inevitably brings up new concerns each semester, giving the faculty new criticisms it must address.
Many critical students just hope that after five years the class would just go away. But Frontiers will most likely be extended and may eventually become a permanent part of the Core Curriculum. And indeed it should: Though there are problems in the current curriculum, it is unquestionable that there is a need for a first-year science course in the Core. Discussion among students, then, should move away from “Why Frontiers?” to “How do we make Frontiers better?”
In order to make Frontiers a more meaningful experience for CC first-years, the Frontiers faculty should work to revise the current curriculum so that it genuinely challenges and appeals to students. One way in which to do this is to narrow the scope of the course. Currently, Frontiers surveys a broad range of complex scientific disciplines within a single semester, disappointing students already versed in today’s scientific trends while overwhelming students who do not know as much. By focusing more closely on fewer topics, Frontiers may sacrifice breadth for depth, but it will leave students more familiar with the material and allow them more time to internalize a particular topic before jumping into the next theme—something that will benefit students with any scientific background.
We must, as students at Columbia, be willing to be challenged. The Frontiers faculty should seek to address the concerns students have brought up. By providing a more rigorous, in-depth insight into fewer topics per semester, Frontiers can win over its naysayers and establish itself as part of the tradition of our iconic Core Curriculum.
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