Akiva Berkowitz | Penn 101: One class to unite them all

Penn is a tracked school. Not in the sense that the same classes are offered on differing levels of depth like some may have seen in High School, rather the choices made during a students first year on campus or maybe even as late as the second, catapult them into majors with similar students to love or hate professors with and the same finals to scream over. 

The question, though, is whether there is value in a universal shared experience across all students, not just amongst similar majors. Are there certain discussions everyone on campus should have at least once, and are there questions every student must consider before graduation? The answer is notably controversial, and colleges around the country have come to different conclusions. Famously, Brown has no general education requirements from its students, while Columbia has taught its immense common core for over a century.  

As Penn’s school spirit begins to slide, and the pre-professional nature of the student body gets increasing attention, we must collectively take steps towards the Columbia side of the spectrum. Penn 101 is the course we never knew we needed. A shared seminar that teaches us what it means to be a college student, what it means to build on our shared literary past, and what it means to discover all the opportunities open to us at Penn. 

I see readers shaking their heads, especially those not in the College and already burned with relatively standardized major requirements. Another writing seminar is not worthwhile, you’re saying. Yet, the goal of the class is not to be overly difficult from a conceptual point of view, but rather to require us to think about higher level issues instead of more detailed ones, like how to debug a Java project.  

There are so many relevant questions this class could consider through the lens of these great texts: Is affirmative action reasonable? To what degree is a religious basis necessary for moral codes? How is a law passed and should it stay that way? Some of these questions could sound classic and maybe even a little pedantic, but there are legitimately many serious issues I never would consider if they weren’t posed to me by others. This single course for all would consider these overarching questions of living in the modern age, and could even end with a trip to somewhere radically new — simply to reflect the ideal of breaking out of our individual bubbles.

In fact, when looking around for any course that even resembles Literature Humanities offered at Columbia, a course that provides an impressive overview of the entire Western canon, I couldn’t find anything. Critics often assert that the Western canon as it is normally taught in these courses does not encompass enough voices and, as the name suggests, is too focused on the West, but it’s impossible to deny the impact many of these texts have had on shaping our world. These traditional books can be disagreed with, fought over, and even condemned, but certainly not ignored. 

To Penn’s credit, when I asked the English department if I had overlooked an upcoming course that filled this niche, they pointed me towards a few interesting seminar style courses on unique topics which circle around the world of humanist learning like “History of Literary Criticism.” However, no course is focused solely on surveying a shared literary and philosophical development over the past three thousand years.

Many writers argue that a humanist education in general should be required of all students. This point is well taken, but should be taken a step further. This universal course shouldn’t simply be a humanities class, it should be a “college” class in the broadest sense. What differentiates Penn from any trade school is the interdisciplinary nature of the students, and to leave us all in our separate tracks leaves so much potential unleveraged. The general education curriculum as it currently stands is a great framework, and if tailored properly can certainly provide a broad enough appreciation of the world surrounding us. This proposed class simply builds on top of those loose requirements, and can stand in for any number of sectors — whether that be “History and Tradition” or “Society.” 

Everyone shouldn’t be majoring in the humanities, but to never encounter the great works of the past calls into question what makes a university education different. Outside of readings, this class could require students to attend a random club meeting, attend a niche sports event, or walk into Civic House.

This approach allows us to have it both ways. To enjoy an experience which respectably promotes high impact careers and provides a space to meet people from different walks of life. At minimum, this course should be an option to cover the ground that our majors leave out. At most, and I strongly believe in this maximal position, it should be required of students university wide. Completing all the requisite material is not the goal, but rather the in-class conversations it would take to get there.

AKIVA BERKOWITZ is an Engineering junior studying computer science from Silver Spring, MD. His email is akivab@sas.upenn.edu.