Steve Brauntuch: Losing the balance with freedom of choice

This week, I began picking the last series of classes I will take at Penn. It's one last chance for me to sneak into a class with that professor people rave about. One last chance to soak up knowledge about a foreign subject that will help me somewhere down the road. One last chance to take advantage of my liberal arts education.

But I'm not struggling with these final few choices at all. In fact, as I looked through the offerings for this semester, it occurred to me that I've taken just about every class I wanted to at this school.

I took Poli Sci classes with John DiIulio and Rogers Smith, both renowned political scholars. I took Communications classes with the dean of the school, the grandson of a president and a Wall Street Journal columnist. I took English classes with Paul Hendrickson and Anthony DeCurtis, two of the most respected journalists in their fields.

I loved every minute of those classes, and I learned from some of the best professors at this school. Aside from another Comm class or two and Tom Childers' World War II lecture, though, I'm satisfied. There were some duds along the way, but I have had the ability and privilege to take almost all of the electives I pleased.

The only problem is that the University granted me the freedom to take all of these classes at the expense of a "balanced" education. I filled all of my requirements by learning about the subjects I wanted to learn about (just enough to become an amateur psychologist and political pundit), but that's probably not what the higher-ups had in mind.

Two history classes? Check -- both in American history with Sheldon Hackney. Two arts and letters classes? Check -- one on the history of music and a freshman seminar on trials in literature. Math and language requirements? Check -- AP credits took care of those.

I get the feeling, though, that somehow, College administrators would much rather see a more varied list of classes than the one found on my transcript. The College sells itself as a place where students come to receive a true liberal arts education. While administrators admit there is no one path to achieve that end result, there are figures and subjects associated with a "traditional" collegiate education, like Shakespeare, Caesar and Socrates. I went for Duke Ellington and Tim Russert. So much for "traditional."

Graduating seniors have been asked to fill out a green piece of paper about whether they've improved in certain academic areas at Penn over the last four years. The categories are communication (written and oral), research, data analysis, computer use and foreign language proficiency. How many students can honestly say they've "improved greatly" in all six categories? I'm two for six, and while my parents may cringe at that batting average, data analysis just wasn't high on my list of priorities. I can't say I'm alone, because some of my friends are hitting below the Mendoza Line (lower than .200 -- I'm a Mets fan, so I'm used to this).

Penn has given me the opportunity to take the classes I want in the fields that I want to study. I'm more than grateful for that, because if there were 12 electives and 20 requirements, I wouldn't be quite as content with my college experience. However, like many others, when given the chance, I took the classes that I thought would be interesting, not the classes that I thought I should take to get a well-balanced education. They're not cakewalk classes, but they're not going to turn me into a seasoned academic any time soon. And I would do it all over again the same way.

It's a very difficult balance for College officials -- force students to take the classics to ensure they receive the proper educational balance, or allow them to pick their favorites and hope for the best. It makes much more sense to let students get their money's worth as they see fit. For most students, though, that freedom of choice means that they received a more "balanced" liberal arts education in high school than they do in college.

Penn is experimenting with the Pilot Curriculum, which give students even more choices and fewer requirements to check off. It's great for students, but it seems to strike a major blow to the basic ideals of a well-rounded liberal arts education. Cutting down the number of requirements even further just makes it easier for students to take one cop-out course and never visit the science departments again. That's definitely what the students want, but it may not be what's best for them or for this university's goals.

I would have complained about it for hours on end, but in reality, I probably could have benefited from a couple of extra requirements over the course of my college career. But nobody's forcing me to walk down to DRL, so I'm not going. I got my version of a liberal arts education, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I just wonder if College administrators are happy, too.

Steve Brauntuch is a senior Communications major from Tenafly, N.J. and editorial page editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

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