Students praise pilot curriculum

With the pilot curriculum in its first semester, Penn is still trying to figure out if its new course plan is the future of College education. But so far, students in the pilot class "Life in the Universe" seem to be pretty happy with their experience. Life in the Universe satisfies the pilot curriculum's Earth, Space and Life category, one of four requirements. Taught by Physics and Astronomy professor David Koerner, the class addresses the question: "What is the probability that extraterrestrial intelligent life exists?" "I think this class is more eager, inspired and intrinsically interested in the class," Koerner said. The class is structured around three lectures led by Koerner and a weekly recitation led by a teaching assistant, a similar structure to the some of the other pilot classes offered this semester. Koerner's class proves itself to be unique from the rest of the pilot classes. While other courses were developed after the curriculum was approved, this class has been offered before as a General Requirement. Seeing that his course was "already a good candidate for the pilot curriculum," Koerner volunteered to participate in the College of Arts and Science's five-year experiment to reform the General Requirement. The pilot reduces the current requirement of 10 narrowly focused courses to four broad-based classes. SAS faculty will vote on whether to expand the program to the entire College in 2005. Two hundred members of the Class of 2004 volunteered to participate in the curriculum last May. Some of the 16 students enrolled in Koerner's class said that they chose to participate in the pilot because they felt it would give them more freedom over their education as opposed to the 10-course general requirement. "I wanted to spend more time on sciences and foreign languages," College freshman Tim Pirolli said. And College freshman Amy Okereke said, "I thought it would give me a lot of focus versus the General Requirement." With a keen interest in politics, Okereke is set on being a Political Science and Politics, Philosophy and Economics major and said that she wanted to focus on those disciplines while at Penn. Putting their reasons for participating in the experimental curriculum aside, however, the students gave this class positive reviews for content. "It's exquisite -- I've learned a lot more than I ever had [before]. It's probably one of the most intense and the teacher is great," College freshman Brad Hodgson said. Still, many faculty members in the sciences have expressed worries that the pilot curriculum as it stands does not educate students sufficiently in the sciences. And Koerner acknowledges the dilemma though taking part in the experimental curriculum. "I feel that under the pilot curriculum, I am under the obligation to provide literacy in the life sciences," Koerner said. He noted that since students under the pilot may not take any other science classes in addition to his, he is "very conscious to provide literacy in sciences other than my own."

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