QRR

To the Editors of The Crimson:

10: Dear President Bok

20: As you have probably guessed from this typeface, I am the proud owner of a Macintosh computer.

30: I am also the proud owner of several other major appliances.

40: While this may not send shivers of ecstasy running up and down the presidential spine, I do believe it to be an instructive statement.

50: For while I do not know how to repair or retool these appliances, I am relatively proficient in operating them.

60: The same is true of my computer.

70: Though I have employed my computer in performing a multitude of tasks, including writing term papers, calculating the effect of the new tuition hike on the family budget, and sending form letters to my relatives, I haven't the slightest idea as to how to program it.

80: I am also, I blush to confess, sadly deficient in the arts of bookbinding, taxidermy, and whale-skinning.

90: The hitch here is that while Harvard has not, as yet, instituted mandatory refrigeration-automation courses and the like, it does have a mandatory computer programming requirement.

100: Leaving aside the relative merits of a sound knowledge of computer programming in the post-PC era, I would submit that the knowledge required to pass the computer Quantitative Reasoning Requirement is of absolutely no practical use. I suspect, for instance, that NASA has already learned how to program a computer to countdown from a given number, and print "Blast-off!" in flashing letters on its computer screens.

110: It therefore seems to me that the QRR Computer requirement must have sprung form one of two sources:

a. A solicitous administrator, concerned about the gaping holes in the schedule of an average Harvard freshman.

b. An attempt to appease faculty members in the quantitative sciences about their exclusion from the Core Curriculum.

120: As an authentic Harvard freshmen, I can lay your mind to rest on both accounts. I find my days simply bursting with things to do, places to see, and new vistas of thought to explore. I have also held extensive conversations with several math majors, who assured me that they would not take it all that hard if the computer QRR was abolished.

130: I thereby request that the University divest of the computer QRR with all due speed, preferably before the time I must take it.

140: The end. File: 302-7678-70