Sequence all the majors

Have you ever found yourself in a class that spends weeks recapping material that you learned last semester? Have you ever been frustrated in an upper-level elective where some students have never heard of basic concepts from the department’s introductory course?

With many departments—particularly those in the humanities and social sciences—lacking established course sequences, advanced courses often contain students with vastly different prior knowledge. Students do not attempt stochastic calculus without being proficient in basic math. Yet we allow students to compare postmodernism in Virginia Woolf and J. M. Coetzee without having learned the fundamentals of textual analysis.

Wildly varying student expertise pressures professors to spend a lot of time and energy getting everyone on the same page. Regardless, beginner and advanced students are unlikely to speak the language of the discipline with the same fluency. A more deliberate sequencing of courses within majors will empower professors to incorporate more sophisticated material and enhance the academic experience.

In Monday’s editorial, we emphasized the importance of specialization—what we called the second phase of the undergraduate education—especially in the humanities. An anemic attempt at specialization lessens a student’s ability to engage in integrated learning later on. Humanities departments—and certain social science departments—need structured curricula that build on themselves in a clear and methodical fashion over time.

First, a department must establish a strong gateway course to its curriculum. This class needs to be consistent across semesters and professors. The fundamentals of a discipline should never be subject to the whimsy of the teacher. Additionally, gateway courses must be comprehensive, covering fundamental concepts rather than niche topics of the professor’s choosing.

Whether textual analysis in English or cost-benefit analysis in public policy, these concepts should be introduced early then deliberately developed over a sequenced core. Each department should recommended a specific roadmap for students, a more in-depth major worksheet thoroughly explaining pre- and co-requisites. This way, a student can track her own development and choose electives accordingly. Course numbering is integral to improving course sequencing. Numbers should truly inform students about the difficulty of a course. The nature of the difficulty—whether measured in pages of reading, number of mathematical concepts employed, musical technique mastered—will vary by department.

But this improved course sequencing system should not be too rigid. It must be flexible enough for students entering Duke who already possess advanced knowledge to skip courses. It must also ensure that each department has a number of beginner courses that require no prior knowledge that anyone could take, regardless of expertise.

Intelligent course sequencing will result in a better, overall classroom experience. Students in advanced courses would finally be accountable for the understanding elementary concepts, freeing up professors to jump into the meat of the sophisticated material more quickly. The whole class’ level of intellectual engagement would then be elevated, resulting in more learning for all. Let’s buckle down and sequence our majors. Let’s finally get everyone on the same page.