"It goes hand in hand with an intellectual decision that the faculty made to not have an undergraduate business major," Metrick says. "While accounting is a perfectly legitimate field of study, it's not necessarily economics."

"Our department is oriented toward an arts and sciences viewpoint and is not geared so much to preparing ordinary participants in the business world," Caves says.

Abbe Professor of Economics Dale W. Jorgenson, chair of the economics department, declined to comment on whether accounting courses had a place in the department.

Caves says that even though accounting might not be central to the economics department, he would support offering the course to meet student demand. "I'd be happy to see the department offer it as a service course," he says. "The problem is that we have no very effective way of getting anyone to teach it."

While Harvard seniors may not have the finance background of their counterparts at, say, Wharton, Cosentino says Harvard's liberal arts approach is still very attractive to potential employers.

"The typical student is going to retain about five percent of what he learns throughout the four years here. What they retain is the process. They become better writers. They analyze issues better," he says. "That's the reason why companies come back here year after year.

Nevertheless, Cosentino advises students to take accounting at MIT, and many of the seniors enrolled in the course say Harvard could offer more to its business aspirants.

"We don't want this to become Wharton," Fields says, "but a few classes here and there in accounting and in finance would be more helpful than detrimental.