"People need to learn how to think quantitatively--We do live in a technological age. Technology, economics and government are intertwined," Ehrenreich says. "We need to understand the numerical ways of expressing trends which have to do with society in a general way. It's very reasonable to add this requirement.

Balancing the Education Equation

So does this all add to a difference in education between science and non-science concentrators? Not according to most professors. They say that a Harvard experience is what one makes of it, and that most students here do go out of their way to get a broader education.

Ehrenreich says that he always advises his students to take a range of classes because when they go on to graduate school they are going to have to narrow their focus tremendously.

He says that though he works with science concentrators, he often sees his students taking many humanities classes.

The opposite seems to be true in some cases as well. Though science courses are notoriously more difficult and graded more harshly, some humanities and social science concentrators do brave them.

"You can get by in things in other fields without putting that much in, and end up with an unbalanced education," Verba says.

"Or, he says, "you can be a science concentrator and pick up a rich humanities education, but it's harder to do the opposite. I know many students in social sciences or humanities who do serious sciences beyond the Core because they're interested in it."