The Evolution of Sections

What do first-years love, sophomores struggle with, juniors dread and seniors laugh at? The Grille, yes, but I was actually referring to sections. Sections are something we can all relate to--they are an unavoidable aspect of academic life at Harvard. In our four-year journey here, our relationship with sections is in constant flux and development. If Verdi had been at Harvard he would have said, "La sections et mobile" ("how fickle are sections"). Sections take us on a real emotional roller coaster. Each year marks the beginning of a new stage in this stormy romance.

Stage One--Your First Year. "They make me happy when skies are gray."

You are fresh out of the high school oven. All of you are intelligent, qualified and talented. Emotionally, however, you can be in one of two places. Some of you say, "Hey, I was valedictorian. I was captain of the basketball team. I was president of the student council. Boy, should I be here." The other group says: "I know I was valedictorian. I know I was star of the tennis team. I know I was the head of the school paper--but so was everybody else in my class. What am I doing here?"

For either group, sections are a dream come true. For those in the first category, sections are a smaller forum in which your words of wisdom may be heard. Others may benefit from the insight you possess. There you are, the youngest in the room, but you feel sure that the other students and the teaching fellow (TF) are excited about your monopolizing section discussion. Sections give you positive reinforcement--look at you, only a first-year, and already you're participating in class.

For the second group, sections break down the overwhelming Sanders Theatre experience into smaller, much less intimidating units. You are a lost soul in your lectures--nervous, underconfident--and sections introduce you to a TF, a good old teacher, not some unapproachable famous person who does not even know that you are in his or her class. Sections provide you with security and intimacy in what can be an overwhelming first year of academics. If in lectures you feel stiff, formal and scared, in sections you feel relaxed, warm and fuzzy all over.

Stage Two--Sophomore Year. "You can't always get what you want".

You're a sophomore now, and you have a year of section experience under your belt. Most probably you did not do as well in your first round of sections as you would have liked. Your TF did not love your final paper as much as you did. You missed an ID on the final. An "A" slipped out of your grasp like a vanishing ghost. You now realize that when it comes to sections, essentially you are positioned on the B+/A- fence. Wave hello to the rest of your class--they are sitting there with you.

Oh, it pains you because it all feels so arbitrary. There is little correlation between how good you feel about a particular assignment and the response and grade you receive from the teacher. If anything, they are probably inversely proportional. Anyway, you certainly don't despair. You are simply more realistic than you were last year. You know there are no guarantees in this school. And I almost forgot--one thing you know now is that section participation does not count (there was a typo on your syllabus; by 15 percent, they actually meant 0 percent).

Stage Three--Junior Year: "Enough is enough is enough, I can't go on no more now."

By now you probably have fewer sections in your schedule than you had in the past, which could make them less grueling, but in fact only makes them more difficult to bear. You are probably in Core sections--the worst of the bunch. The first-years annoy you--they do all the reading. Sophomores are fine, but they also do a lot of reading. You are busy with seminars, conference courses, pre-thesis activities and the like. The last thing you need is an hour to listen while students eagerly call out and give a soliloquy on Michelangelo or Beethoven's Ninth. You have lost all patience by now. This is for somebody else, those who love to hear themselves speak (and there are some--many), but certainly not for you.

Stage Four--Senior Year: "Lookin' for fun and feeling groovy."

If you have a section your senior year, it is probably in some gut of a class you intend to devote as little time to as possible. It is merely filler space for non-thesis work. If you are not writing a thesis, it is still your senior year and so you are taking fun electives, maybe finishing some last minute, easy requirements. If you are a senior and do not fit into one of these two categories and are freely choosing to take challenging courses with heavy workloads, you should take some time out to think about what's happened to your life. Are you happy?

In any event, if you are in a section, you probably find yourself to be one of the oldest in the room. And this year, unlike any other, the other students actually look young to you. You feel old, aware that you have one foot out the door of college. When you have LSATs, medical school applications, recruiting and job interviews in your schedule, and when the overall question about what you are going to do with the rest of your life looms overhead, you cannot possibly take sections very seriously. The time for section concern is past. If anything, sections are relaxing--for one hour, while you sit there, you have an excuse to not worry about the pressing things on your mind. You are carefree, with a sense of humor about it by now.

The section experience at Harvard is merely one of the many psychological and emotional evolutions we undergo. As with every development process, the person we have become often looks back on the person we were. So as a senior you sit there, chuckling inside not only at how seriously the younger students take it, but at how quickly the time has passed since you sat there, just as seriously as they.