Quantitative requirement needs change

For many Penn humanities students, fulfilling the Quantitative Data Analysis requirement is a dreaded chore. For me, at least, going to my QDA class every day is like ripping off a Band-Aid: I just grit my teeth and bear it.

But when I perused the course schedule earlier this year, I discovered that the QDA classes seemed to fall into one of two categories: those that illustrate mathematical concepts in humanities-based fields like sociology, history or psychology and those that could be more generally useful in the real world but come with a list of prerequisites.

The QDA policy claims that the requirement designed so that "graduates of the College are able to apply quantitative methods to analyze and understand substantive problems and to think critically about quantitative information as encountered in a variety of areas of contemporary life."

Translation? We should understand how numbers and calculations function in our daily lives and careers.

The requirement was designed to allow students to further their quantitative knowledge within a familiar subject area, College Director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman said.

"When the requirement was instituted, 70 to 75 percent of students were already fulfilling" it, Peterman said. "The point was to adjust the other 25 percent who didn't have the course already."

Even though I would have fallen somewhere in that 25 percent, I am not one of those literary-minded people who discounts the benefits of the QDA requirement.

But there will always be those students who resist the requirement and end up taking a class that won't apply to their future profession. For those of us who don't know what we want to do, there are some subject areas that would undoubtedly help us with more general real-world skills.

But, unfortunately, that's not always possible.

Every single economics class that counts toward the QDA requirement requires the student to have already taken certain math or econ courses, and the students who have taken these prerequisite courses probably already have mathematically honed minds.

"The department proceeds on a general theoretical level, and students don't interact with real data," Peterman said. Since the QDA credit requires hands-on interaction, lower-level economics courses don't fall within the requirement.

In addition, all but one statistics course has a math prerequisite.

Obviously, the University does not want to graduate a class that includes students who have read Homer and Plato but cannot explain how a stock market really works or an economy functions.

Many articles across media outlets utilize statistics, and most of us will have to handle our own finances in the near future. American society is modeled around a canon of practical knowledge that some students manage to avoid, even with college requirements. I am guilty as charged.

"There were some deficiencies among grads in" quantitative analysis, Peterman said. "We thought that all college grads should have the ability to look at data critically."

I think the deficiency still exists, even with the requirement.

The thing is, the College has to make statistical and real-world education more accessible than it is. Extra effort should be made to help the students who really need the real-world education around which the requirement was designed. They probably won't come looking for it on their own.

To give the University credit, Penn offers funding for the development of new QDA courses. The requirement should offer classes that teach general quantitative knowledge in addition to the career-specific classes. And there is definitely room for the requirement to evolve.

In an attempt to live up to its own standards, the QDA requirement should offer modified courses about how to read stock-market trends, invest money or handle insurance and mortgages. These courses are ideal for students who have no prerequisites -- we are the ones who would most benefit from exposure to the material.

It's easy to get caught up in theories and ideas and graduate with a head full of knowledge and a deficit of real-world skills. Plato and Thoureau spent their lives in contemplation, but they didn't have impending bills, newspapers and private pensions.

The clock is ticking on our carefree college days, and the real world is a lot closer than most of us realize. Administrators in the College, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Nursing should help students take the initiative to balance an idealistic framework with a dose of real-world know-how.

Anna Hartley is a sophomore comparative literature and French major from Palo Alto, Calif. Penn's Annatomy appears on Tuesdays.

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