The Benefits of an Open Curriculum, Part 1

As the title of this post suggests, this has to do with the more-or-less open curriculum system we have here at Vassar. For those who don't know, Vassar students have only three common requirements for graduation: proficiency in a language, a freshman seminar designed to get incoming students used to writing in college, and a quantitative course. Other than that, the only requirements exist by major, and take up usually no more than 13 (but usually 11) of the 34 units required for graduation.

Back in the day when I was looking at colleges, the full benefits of an open curriculum were unclear to me. I realized that they meant I would never have to take another math class again (although I did); however, I didn't think about other implications. In particular, I didn't really consider how the option of taking whatever desired would affect the composition of who was in my classes.

Since coming to Vassar, I've discovered that the open curriculum concept not only allows me a great deal of flexibility in what classes I take, but that it also causes classes to contain students who are taking the class solely because they're interested. In particular, this means that even in intermediate and advanced level classes, there are plenty of people who aren't necessarily majoring in the subject, but are nevertheless interested in it. They bring to the table a unique and different perspective which a major in the subject might not otherwise be exposed to.

This is especially evident for me, this semester, in my history class. A 200 (intermediate) level class of approximately 22 people, this does, of course, contain its fair share of history majors. The things that surprised me, however, were how many non-history majors and minors there were who were taking the class, how diverse of this conglomeration was. There are, for example, majors and/or minors in such departments as Psychology, Africana Studies, Asian Studies, Italian Studies, Women's Studies, Economics, English, Philosophy and Political Science. Thanks to the fact that the class ranges from covering social to political to economic to cultural topics, all of these represented backgrounds of study help to generate a fuller, more fruitful class discussion.