First-years, what came to your mind when you pictured a Brown education? When I first got to Brown, I imagined a life of vigorous discussions led by bespectacled, sweater-clad professors in warm wooden classrooms. It’s the experience advertised in admissions materials, and one that you might be looking for as you scroll through Courses@Brown this shopping period.
For the most part, I think debate and disagreement are integrated into our learning experience at Brown. With one notable exception: the two-and-a-half-hour, once-a-week seminar — which is a firm fixture of the academic schedule. These classes are too long, meet too infrequently and are simply not well suited for fostering enlivened debate.
I graduated high school alongside just over 80 classmates. Arriving at Brown and stepping into lecture halls packed with more than double that many students was instantly overwhelming. For first-years who feel the same way, or anyone who just wants to hear directly from the other 7,195 perspectives on campus, they might try to find a more intimate intellectual environment in humanities seminars. Not to mention that 62% of teachers believe smaller classes enhance learning.
There is a certain harmony that makes a small, conversation-driven class effective. But it doesn’t come naturally — relationships are built on shared time and experiences, so they’re harder to develop when groups meet just once a week. Tri-weekly meetings mean a class and its members become part of the rhythm of your life. Seeing all of the sides to your classmates — from their hungover mornings to their eureka moments — you’ll develop a natural rapport. And as you learn to accept those sides of them, you’ll learn to welcome their opinions and perspectives in turn. This comfort will naturally draw forth students’ opinions and promote effective discourse without fear or self-censorship. Exciting conversations also encourage students to prepare thoroughly for class so they can hold their own as their ideas are dissected and dissect those of their peers in return. Brown’s language classes, many of which meet daily, reap the benefits of consistency: a bond of trust between classmates and professors and more fruitful conversations as a result.
The current scheduling norm makes the effect of one bad day wildly disproportionate. Seminars meet around 14 times per semester, and so just one measly breakup or night spent too late at Josiah’s costs students 7% of their learning experience. A single missed class, likewise, counts for an entire week of absence. The two-and-a-half-hour seminar fails to account for the volatile reality of being a college student, and Brunonians lose out on learning as a result.
Proponents of the lengthy seminar might argue that they provide the time needed to discuss content in further depth, but in reality this extended discussion sacrifices the quality of student contributions. Even on your best day, spirited discussions can be taxing. Research demonstrates that the second half of long, demanding classes suffer from student fatigue as cognitive demand increases. Engagement can easily peter out before the end of two-and-a-half-hours, especially when, per the standard schedule, seminars can end as late as 6:30 p.m.
As a humanities concentrator, I feel my learning and class options are both limited by the fact that so many of the courses I see on Courses@Brown meet in this block. The difficult ideas my courses ask me to grapple with don’t nestle into my consciousness, as I’m asked to recall them infrequently. Repetition and practice — which happen with consistent, repeated engagement — are proven to enhance comprehension. As it is, our seminars lack staying power.
It’s deeply counterintuitive that a small class that relies almost solely on the vitality of its participants needs to be almost three hours long. Even the time cost of the niceties related to starting and finishing a class — maybe five minutes — help fortify a class’s bond. While it might remain a rare scheduling exception, I think it must not remain the norm. Seminars should make intellectual engagement a habit, not just a brochure image.
Isabella Gardiner ’28 can be reached at isabella_gardiner@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
Isabella Gardiner is an opinions editor and a member of the editorial page board. She is a sophomore from London, UK, and plans on concentrating in history.
