Hopkins has launched a new major this semester called “Medicine, Science, and the Humanities.” In a press release, Beverly Wendland, the interim dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, described the major as a way to close the gap between science and the humanities. Using the phrase “interdisciplinary,” she asserts that Hopkins is the perfect institution to link science and the humanities together and that today in higher education, students should be educated in both instead of having to choose one or the other.
On the surface, this seems like a great idea. Students should be taking a wide variety of classes, not just science classes and not just humanities classes. However, aren’t students already afforded this opportunity? Incoming freshman have always been told that they don’t need to choose between science and the humanities, that they are free to take all kinds of different classes and even double major, as many ultimately do. But with the creation of this major, the administration appears to be admitting the opposite.
The Editorial Board believes the University has essentially created a major in order to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. In doing so, it has continued to cater to pre-med students while wasting resources on what is best described as a PR move.
The new major claims to allow students to take a wider variety of both science and humanities classes, but in actuality, it has no core science requirements. It preaches quantity over quality, and while it does allow students to take a broad array of classes, it never really forces them to get into any meaningful depth in those classes. The major encourages a breadth of education while ignoring the value of depth of study. It really is common for students here to double (or triple) major, or to have a major and several minors, or to just to have one major but take a dozen or so courses outside their concentration. Students can easily attain that valuable humanities-science dual education through existing programs of dedicated, advanced study. Instead of putting resources into a new major that covers little new ground, Hopkins should promote our current variety of majors and the flexibility offered to students in their course selection — something that Hopkins admission officers are actually very adept at doing already.
Furthermore, the opportunity cost associated with creating a new major cannot be ignored; when time, money and faculty are invested into one new major, it means another possible new area of study is thrown to the side. If the Krieger School is looking to create new majors and minors for its students, perhaps it could focus more on pre-law students, or art students, or any type of student that isn’t intent on attending medical school. The University is full of students of varying interests and talents — they deserve a commitment by its administrators that reflects that.
