The Harvard Crimson is reporting that after 4 years of deliberation, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences today voted 168 to 14 in favor of a new general education curriculum emphasizing "the real-world applications of a liberal arts education."

The article goes on to say:

Under the new general education requirements, students will be required to take courses in eight categories, including "Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding," "Culture and Belief," "Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning," "Ethical Reasoning," "Science of Living Systems," "Science of the Physical Universe," "Societies of the World" and "the United States and the World."

Hmm. Let's see here.

"Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning" DB: Math Rip-off.

"Ethical Reasoning" Yeah we got that. The exact same thing.

"Science of Living Systems" NatSci, anyone?

"Science of the Physical Universe" Sounds a lot like our EngrAppSci (courses fulfilling that requirement here).

"The United States and the World" They just mushed together American Cultures (AmerCul) and The Global Community (GlobalCom). Nice try, Harvard.

What's most pathetic about this sad excuse for thievery is in what they left out, not what they included. Of our Education for Citizenship GERs, Harvard notably forgot to "borrow" our Gender Studies requirement. This is one of the most important ones, I think. Fulfilling an American Cultures GER, for example, doesn't require the average (American) student to broaden her metaphorical horizons as much as taking a course on, say, feminist history, or another such course which "address[es] gender conceptions, roles, and relations" (Registrar's Office).

God, Harvard's lame.