Extracurriculars Have Supplanted Academics at Harvard. Here’s How To Fix It.

This is Harvard. We came here to learn. Right?

A recent report released by a Faculty of Arts and Sciences committee paints a bleak picture of the state of academics at the University. Aggregating the results of numerous surveys, listening sessions, and informal conversations, the committee revealed several worrisome realities of “the FAS classroom.”

Chief among them was the finding that “students do not prioritize their courses.” Instead, extracurriculars, including a dizzying array of pre-professional clubs, occupy the spotlight.

The committee is right to recommend that classes be more rigorous. But what Harvard truly needs is well-purposed rigor — one designed to increase learning rather than merely enhance its difficulty. That starts with students taking greater personal responsibility, faculty stepping up to the plate, and a community-wide reckoning with Harvard’s pre-professional culture.

We do a disservice to ourselves and our classmates when we engage halfheartedly in our courses. Students are free to make their own decisions — but freedom of choice does not imply freedom from consequences.

We all know the feeling of sitting in a section where no one did the reading. Such sections are plagued with shallow platitudes and broad, nonspecific lines of questioning. As those sections painfully make clear, when even a mere handful of students decline to engage in the course material, all students lose out.

Such disengagement takes many forms: frantically typing up a problem set for another class, coasting through discussions by parroting others’ ideas, and stalking friends on LinkedIn during lectures. These habits don’t just undermine individual learning — they dilute the integrity of the academic experience.

That said, blame for Harvard's widespread deprioritization of academics does not fall solely on students. If students can coast through courses while playing computer games, work on behalf of faculty must be undertaken to increase course engagement. Faculty play a crucial role in shaping the academic culture, and they too must take responsibility for fostering an environment where learning takes precedence.

So, what can be done?

Any efforts to recenter academics in the undergraduate experience must prioritize learning over arbitrary workload. Making classes more difficult simply to meet hour requirements will not reinvigorate academic engagement, and instead risks pushing students towards shirking work and relegating assignments to ChatGPT.

Assignments, problem sets, and readings must serve an identifiable purpose — not simply fill an arbitrary 12-hour quota — lest students come to see their coursework as obstacles to endure rather than opportunities to learn.

There are a couple of common sense methods to increase student buy-in. First, incorporating attendance into course grading incentives to attendance. Second, check class preparation through reading responses and lecture cold-calling. There isn’t a need for such responses to be needlessly burdensome — but some form of reading check would do well to shore up the wellspring of disengagement.

Third, distracting screens should be phased out of our classrooms. However inconvenient, the proportion of students using their devices to shirk work often outweighs those taking notes. Instructors can help by providing pre-written lecture outlines, notes, and slides.

Students and faculty aside, there’s a cultural issue at work, too: We’ve lamented the rise in careerism here before. It’s a parasitic culture that launches students into the pre-professional rat race much too soon and puts transcripts at odds with resumes.

We can’t ignore that students need jobs, and many turn to pre-professional organizations out of necessity. Recruiting and the post-graduation job market loom large over students’ minds, compelling them to prioritize career preparation over classes.

That said, the current state of college recruiting is patently absurd: Many students recruit for their junior summer internship at the start of their sophomore year. Harvard and the Mignone Center for Career Success should work with peer institutions to pressure recruiters to push back their timelines, giving students more time to focus on their education before being swept into the job market.

Now, students fret about what their future will hold beyond Harvard’s gates. Instead, they should spend more time engrossed in the environment within — and it’s up to students and faculty alike to ensure that environment is worth engagement.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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