According to the review committee's working paper, the goal of the Core science classes is to "convey a general understanding of experimental and theoretical science as a way of looking at human beings and the world."

And the Core does accomplish that goal, Faculty members say.

"I think they certainly get enough basics about how one thinks about science," Ehrenreich says. "Both in Science A in the quantitative aspects of science and in Science B in the biological sciences."

Other Faculty members, however, acknowledge that they are some Core classes that more approximate the pure science classes concentrators have to take, and are more "hardcore," but they are not as popular.

"There are some [more rigorous science classes] and I'm afraid students stay away from them unfortunately," Dowling says.

Verba points out that pure math and science classes often require special knowledge and abilities that the social science and humanities don't, putting extra pressure on a non-science concentrator who has to take a standard chemistry or physics course.

"There is a way in which social sciences and humanities are more accessible to scientists than science is to humanists and social scientists," Verba says. "I've been told by physicists that I'll never understand what they are talking about, and I accept that."

Verba admits that "it's probably true" that the science classes in the Core are not very "science-y" but that students still learn a great deal from them.