As 60 or so nervous looking first-years filed into Quantitative Reasoning 28, "The Magic of Numbers," the two professors teaching the class did their best to reassure the students.

"It's a fun math course," says Benedict H. Gross, Leverett professor of mathematics. "There is nothing specific that has to be covered."

Some members of the Class of 2003 may feel lucky because they didn't have to take the dreaded Quantitative Reasoning Requirement test last week, but others grumble about their new requirement--an entire class devoted to statistical analysis.

New to the Core curriculum this year is the QRR. While returning students can avoid the dreaded fate of taking a class with numbers, first-years cannot.

Why?

Until this year, the Core lacked any math requirement for humanities

concentrators, and this worried many Faculty members.

"There is almost nothing in the contemporary world that doesn't revolve around understanding statistics, probability, and inference." Pforzheimer University Professor, and Chair of the CRC, Sidney Verba '53 told The Crimson in April. "It's really an important area to make as an area of

education."