When FAS Doesn't Make the Grade: Alternative Courses

As Harvard's 800-page coursebook doesn't offer tactics training (needed to bomb Iraq) or accounting (essential when applying to Lazard Freres), it's damn lucky that kids of the Crimson can fall back on Boston's other academic options. Cross-registering, be it with the Law School, the Design School, the Divinity School or MIT, can present a logistical nightmare. A cross-registree must file multiple forms, with myriad signatures, by multitudinous FAS deadlines-regardless of the time table the other school uses. Moreover, only courses taught by Harvard or MIT professors are fair game. Before it's too late, consider your options:

MIT

MS101, "Introduction to the Army"

This first step toward serving Uncle Sam promises to "provide a framework of leadership, management and communication skills to enable the first year ROTC cadet to understand the responsibility and authority vested in Army officers, and to critically evaluate a leader's effectiveness." More advanced classes address "the leadership of small units conducting conventional combat operations" and discuss "defensive and retrograde operations." Harvard does not offer ROTC because the federal program's guidelines conflict with the University's anti-discrimination policy; homosexuals may not participate in the courses. The "Handbook for Students" extensive small-print on the subject warns readers of potential restrictions on free speech and other dangers of enrolling.

Undergraduate Studies in Toxicology and Environmental Health

A new department still in the works, MIT officials intend it to be a potential minor for their students. Harvard students with a yen to investigate such subjects as "Tissue Stern Cell Kinetics, Cancer and Aging," which will approach the quantification of tissue cell kinetics, should keep their eyes peeled.

The Boston Language Institute

"Guaranteed Swahili"

The Registrar affords no academic credit to those who take part in this or any other of the 140 language courses offered. But at $695 for a 30-hour course (also available in the Shona, Farsi or Gaelic varieties), it's a lot cheaper than Spanish A.

UMass Boston: The College of Public and Community Service

HPF120, "Team Sports"

Those who find that a half-course on the history of baseball does not sate their athletic inclinations can turn to the state's "Department of Human Performance and Fitness." Cut-throat Harvard students might benefit from learning to play with others.

The Berklee School of Music

CM310, "Post Bebop Harmonic Innovations"

Only matriculated students may apply.

Some colleges guide their students down clear-cut paths; Harvard leaves theirs in the middle of a forest without a compass and sees if they can survive long enough to find their ways out. By contrast, Bay State College trains students in fashion, business and hospitality and tourism. It creates future travel agents and flight attendants. There is hope for expanding one's horizons beyond the Sanders/Sever bubble-for those willing to take the weight and pay the rate.