The future for science offerings within the Freshman Seminar Program looks bright—and Hubel says there is still a ways to go.

Even more courses could be offered with the collaboration of the graduate and medical schools, according to Hubel, who says faculty members at Harvard Medical School are unaware of the opportunity to teach a seminar.

“The medical school could be a major source of teachers, with its faculty of thousands and only about 600 medical students to teach,” Hubel says.

A Bumpy Road to the Web

In an effort to make the application and selection process easier for both students and professors, the Freshman Seminar Program used a new web-based application this year.

“The application process was technically simple. The website was easy to use and the application questions were straightforward,” says Daniel J. Feith ’06.

The new application process also asked students to rank their preferences—a step that professors hoped would make it easier to match students with their top choice and prevent some students from being accepted into multiple seminars, taking others’ places in the course.

“Students were assigned to only one seminar as opposed to the past, when one student might be accepted into two or three or more and turn down spots in all but one,” Doherty says.

But the online application program also saw its share of technical glitches.

Doherty says that a number of students still had to submit paper applications this year due to computer problems, and a handful of first-years lacked the necessary PIN code to access the application.

“All in all, it was quite smooth, all things considered, and we’ve learned a lot about what refinements the system may still need,” Doherty says.

More Work Ahead

Despite the rapid expansion of the Freshman Seminar Program over the last three years, there’s still a lot of work to be done.