Sarah Cantin | A whole new world

I've never been a minority in a classroom. As a white female English major partial to courses on gender and sexuality, I tend to be surrounded by people who look a lot like me.

Until this semester, when I enrolled in "African Americans in TV and Film." For the first time, I'm in the racial minority, learning about a group that far outnumbers me in the classroom.

Of course, six weeks in one seminar hasn't given me a transcendental awareness of a certain racial existence. But it is challenging me to literally see my world through an altered lens - and though I've watched Grey's Anatomy for three seasons, I'm only now considering how the character of Miranda Bailey might play into the "Mammy" stereotype.

Yet too many of us may feel like we don't have the time, or the incentive, to take a class that addresses an identity or experience we're not familiar with. And until recently, the University didn't mandate that you did.

But with a modified curriculum in effect for the College of Arts and Sciences Class of 2010 and beyond, this will hopefully change. Professor Eric Schneider, associate director for Academic Affairs, explained that while curriculum revision can be a politically dicey process, College faculty agreed that any alterations should have the goal of "pushing students to get out of their comfort zone."

The result? Two new foundational approaches, which join the likes of the writing and quantitative data analysis requirements: Cross-Cultural Analysis (CCA, in effect for the Class of 2010) and Cultural Diversity in the U.S. (CDUS, in effect for 2012).

You could probably coast through these requirements, picking courses that wouldn't actually expose you to anything new. But is that really what you're here for? We have an entire department dedicated to South Asia Studies - and it seems like a lot of us are missing out if only Sri Lankan and Indian students fill those classes.

Ultimately, the success of the new foundational approaches rests with you, and how you choose to satisfy them. While acknowledging that it's "undeniably important" to promote cultural awareness, Engineering junior and former SCUE Vice President Sarah Doherty also wonders whether requirements are the best way to achieve this goal, as they "often encourage resentment of a topic."

It's true that students typically resist anything they're told they must do, and I suffered bitterly through Astronomy my freshman year. But these foundational approaches are a necessary starting point, and departments that focus on identity studies are essential. Not only do they offer you an opportunity to critically examine your own experience, but they also give you the chance to learn about a topic you may have never considered "academic" - like Iranian Cinema or the History of Jazz.

With visual culture and the media increasingly informing our perception of the world, it's especially important that we become deft analysts of the images and messages that bombard us. The reality is that if universities don't teach these skills, few other places in your life will. Furthermore, these are skills that will last. You probably won't remember those rock characteristics you had to memorize for Geology, but depiction of minorities in popular culture isn't as easily forgotten.

The CCA and CDUS requirements aren't perfect solutions. But instead of focusing on how to simply check them off your academic worksheet, reflect on what they're doing there in the first place. With course selection approaching in two weeks, consider choosing a class on a cultural experience or identity group you've never studied before. I certainly wish I hadn't waited so long to do so.

Sarah Cantin is a College senior from Boston, Mass. Her email is cantin@dailypennsylvanian.com. Candid Cantin appears on alternating Mondays.

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