Barnard's Nine Ways of Knowing Nothing

As I lay awake in physics the other day, I sleepily mused about why I was there. Why was Barnard College so cruel as to deprive me of a nice literature course in favor of my napping through a lecture on photons or protons or, according to my muddled notes, something about plum pudding?

Granted, my failure to learn anything in Physics for Poets is partly my own fault. My interest in physics is limited to a brief middle school affair that involved reading Timeline by Michael Crichton, whose explanation of the “science” behind time travel still forms the basis of my quantum understanding. Without interest in a subject, I lack any motivation to try to understand it. Sure, this is partly born of laziness, but it also has roots in academic idealism—what is learning without passion?

Apparently, it’s a Barnard General Education Requirement.

I have become increasingly mystified by the Nine Ways of Knowing as I have slowly and often accidentally fulfilled them. It all sounded great before I got here—approaching knowledge from “analytical, quantitative, and artistic perspectives,” with students choosing appropriate courses tailored to their interests. This seemed a reasonable middle ground between the Brown attitude and the Columbia one: all students should encounter some basic breadth of coursework, but they are mature enough to fashion their own academic paths without an erudite committee breathing Homer down their necks.

In practice, though, this approach has proven more limiting than broadening. Some of the ways of knowing are laughably vague. I still don’t understand exactly what “Reason and Value” is, for example. It is defined as “one course that allows students to explore ways in which values shape thought, thought shapes values, and both guide human actions.” That’s so amorphous that any reasonable humanities course should cover it, and the courses that officially satisfy it seem to have been chosen randomly. Most of the humanities requirements are like this—simultaneously meaningless in their ambiguity and restrictive in their arbitrary selection of accepted classes.

The two semesters of lab science are the only instance of in-depth study, and even that is meaningless everywhere but on your transcript. If Barnard is striving for some common level of achievement among its students, this type of onerous requirement accomplishes nothing. Science-resistant students will simply take the easiest course they can find, meaning that earning a Barnard degree can involve anything from a year spent spying on Sarah Jessica Parker’s child through a one-way mirror to drowsily memorizing and then promptly forgetting that KE=1/2mv^2.

The Nine Ways of Knowing are not atrocious, but they are thoroughly mediocre. The attempt to bridge depth and breadth is admirable, but the current system fails to do so. Instead, there are a number of diffuse requirements without any rigor, scratching at the surface of whatever arbitrary discipline a student chooses.

In contrast, Barnard’s first-year seminar system is fairly successful. I had a decent experience with this program, and the problems I have heard about it relate mainly to specific professors or difficulty getting into chosen seminars. It offers Legacy of the Mediterranean, a Lit Hum equivalent, but also provides alternatives for students with as much interest in the Odyssey as I have in, say, Planck’s constant, whatever that is. The seminar system, in comparison to the Core, admirably cuts down on the proportion of students Cliffs-noting Milton to no one’s benefit.

As far as I can tell, the first-year seminar philosophy is that people cannot be forced to learn against their will, but they can be nudged in constructive directions. I just wish that this could be applied to the Nine Ways of Knowing. Perhaps with fewer requirements, and certainly fewer silly requirements, this could be accomplished. Eliminate the arbitrary classifications that supposedly provide breadth, and perhaps we can wrangle some meaning and cohesion out of our liberal arts education.

The problems with the science requirement are more difficult to address, but at the very least it should be cut down to ruining only one semester, not two. Perhaps there should be more options, such as archaeology or more theory-based classes that explore how science impacts and interacts with the humanities. Even a class modeled on Frontiers of Science would be an improvement over the current nightmare of empty busywork and extraneous formulas.

As it stands, the system evokes memories of my high school guidance counselor urging me to take AP Environmental because it looks good on a transcript and don’t worry, it won’t be hard. So I spent senior year pasting together construction-paper wind turbines. I had hoped that in college I would finally focus on subjects that engage me rather than patronize me. Instead, I am trying to decide if wind power pop-up books should count for Lab Science or for Visual and Performing Arts.

The author is a Barnard College sophomore.