“I don’t think the Core is any better now than it was when it started,” says Plummer Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes. “I think it’s too restrictive. I keep hearing students say that half of their academic career is taken up with requirements.”

Others say that the Core requirement presents an obstacle for any student wishing to explore new and different fields.

“The Core courses tend to obliterate all the nooks and crannies in the course catalog that students come to be interested in,” says Higginson Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Chair of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Philip A. Kuhn. “They also suck the life out of department courses because the enrollments become too small to sustain them.”

Many students concur that fulfilling Core requirements can be frustrating.

“Right now I consider the Core a hindrance,” says Anthony A. Onah ’05.

Finding room to fit in electives around concentration and Core obligations can be difficult, according to Joy A. Cooper ’06, an African and African-American Studies concentrator who is also working to complete her premedical requirements.

“I don’t get to take interesting courses outside of my major,” Cooper says.

In addition, some students contest the seven core disciplines themselves.

“Lit and Arts B as it’s specifically defined is somewhat arbitrary,” says Onah.

Many students say that they would welcome a system that gave them more ways to fulfill their requirements.

“What I really hate is that you can’t take higher level courses like ‘Comp. Lit. 220’ and have them count for Lit and Arts A,” says Victor Y. Gao ’04. “For people who have experience and want to be able to do something higher, they should be able to.”

Both students and faculty cite flaws within the structure of Core classes as well, including a lack of uniformity in difficulty level between various Core classes.

And students say they do not always find Core classes that satisfy their interests or desire for challenge.

For example, when Chevelle L. Dixon ’07 looked for Core classes related to African and African-American studies, she came up short.

“A lot of Core classes don’t cater to African-Americans. That’s something that needs to be addressed,” she says.