“[Professor Sandel] makes an effort to make the class feel smaller than it is by having people state their names when they talk,” said Jessica R. Rosenfeld ’07.

Though the enrollment numbers aren’t nearly as large as Harvard’s biggest courses, more students have signed up to take Arabic this year.

“Last year and this year there have been precipitous leaps in the number of students in first year Arabic. Almost 90 students have enrolled,” said Director of the Arabic Language Program William E. Granara. “There are students from the Law School, the Divinity School and the Kennedy School of Government, but there are also more freshmen studying Arabic because of the issues in the Middle East which have received great national attention.”

One such first-year is Raymond L. Palmer ’07, who said his initial desire to study the language was the result of his interest in Middle Eastern culture.

“I went to a Model United Nations Conference and met many friends from Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon [and others from the Middle East],” he said. “They spoke Arabic and I got fascinated by the language.”

Core Curriculum classes continue to see some of Harvard’s largest undergraduate enrollments. Other popular courses this year include Literature and Arts C-61, “The Rome of Augustus,” Literature and Arts B-82, “Sayin’ Something: Jazz as Sound, Sensibility, and Social Dialogue” and English 13, “The English Bible,” which satisfies the Literature and Arts A requirement.