Zachary Noyce | Learning comes first

What do you mean, you haven't settled on your final project yet? We're already three weeks into the semester!

This year, as always, Penn students will launch advertising campaigns, write unique research papers and think of business proposals. More and more classes ask students to apply the knowledge that the classes purport to teach. It sure sounds great in brochures, but it may not really be as brilliant as it sounds.

Chances are, if you're in a class with one of those massive assignments anchoring the syllabus, your professor has already reminded you a few times that you'd better come up with some ideas and come up with them quick. But there's a good chance that you're not even deep enough into the course material to understand your project.

Learn by doing. Apply classroom principles to real-world settings. Make a contribution. Blah blah blah. There must be something in the seltzer water in 1920 Commons because until this year, I never questioned Penn's curriculum. In fact, I might even be able to come up with a few nifty catchphrases of my own about the perfection of Penn's system if I hadn't already heard every permutation possible.

There certainly is a lot to be gained from these kinds of hands-on projects. There's little value in getting an Engineering degree if you never designed anything. What's the point in a marketing degree if you've never tried marketing anything? And a Political Science major who's never done significant research is just a glorified C-SPAN junkie.

There are practical limits on the value of practical learning though.

We make medical students learn primarily in the classroom or closely supervised settings for 17 years (or thereabouts) before we turn them loose with a prescription pad. Experienced commercial airline pilots are in classes and simulators for weeks before they're allowed into the cockpit of a plane. Heck, I had to attend five hours of meetings before I was allowed to push around a cardboard box with wheels on it, and lug incoming freshmen's LCD TVs up three flights of stairs during move-in.

It's awfully difficult to apply principles you haven't learned yet. If a class expects you to do a large project - be it a marketing campaign, a research paper or whatever it is you math majors do - chances are you'll need to get started on it before you've learned everything you need to complete that project.

Your gem of a professor will probably make sure that you don't do the whole thing at the last minute. There will be a proposal due early on and portions of it due intermittently throughout the semester. So that means you'll get to do it at the last minute several times, and get to know the 3 a.m. Wawa cashier that much better.

The History department, for instance, requires majors to "conduct significant research . and write a substantial paper," which they usually do as part of a seminar class. The department recommends that professors break the project into several components, each with a firm due date.

That just means that the information learned in the course will be less helpful in completing the project - especially in the initial stages. What students brings into a class affects the quality of their work far more than what they get out of a class.

"It is clear that there is a problem . balancing between teaching curricula and directing research," concedes Ann Moyer, the History department's Undergraduate Curriculum chairwoman. Those classes that fulfill the major's research requirement tend to be less focused on teaching the relevant material.

The department emphasizes that these classes are more focused on research and therefore, less focused on teaching. Administrators hope that students will bring that knowledge from previous courses, though Moyer admits that "there is nothing preventing a student from walking in cold."

Penn thinks that such requirements are good ones. "We think it's absolutely crucial to a serious study of history not just to read others' work but to practice yourself," Moyer told me, adding, "these skills are essential features of a liberal arts education."

This sentiment seems to be the dominant one, so there's little chance that you'll see those huge projects disappearing from your syllabi any time soon. Hopefully you didn't need to learn anything in those classes you enrolled in.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go apply some skills I'll be learning in a few weeks.

Zachary Noyce is a College junior from Salt Lake City, Utah. His e-mail is noyce@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Stormin' Mormon appears Mondays.

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