The Justice

I can't shake this vision of a prospective student poring over admissions pamphlets, coming across the possibility to create his or her own Independent General Education Requirements. Instantly, excitement grows as this overeager and inherently confused prospective student identifies the well-advertised new IGER program as something all too similar to Brown University's New Curriculum.

I'm not suggesting that Brown students receive an education inferior to ours. Although the New Curriculum's lack of general education requirements offers its students infinite freedom, it's not the model that Brandeis should follow. Brandeis' education guarantees well-rounded graduates. Even if IGER's foundations are rooted in the University's mission to teach core intellectual skills, global citizenship and a broad array of knowledge, a community united in pursuit of the same educational foundation is a risky thing to sacrifice. IGER, proposed by the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering Committee in a separate report, has tremendous potential to be misused and exaggerated as a recruiting tool.

We are already designing our own respective curricula. Brandeis' existing distributional requirements are remarkably loose. The University Writing Seminar offers first-years a tremendous amount of options. Writing intensive and oral communication courses abound in all departments, and students will inevitably complete the required courses. And there are so many courses available that fulfill the requirements for non-Western and comparative studies, quantitative reasoning, science, social science, humanities and creative arts that students often don't even know which class to choose.

The current system is structured in such a way that grants students the freedom to simultaneously determine what they want to study while ensuring them a well-rounded education. The University should be proud that it produces graduates who have studied in many areas of academia. Graduate schools recognize Brandeis as a school that challenges its students and encourages them to think in many different ways. Although the idea for IGER is rooted in these same standards, its implementation will not prove to be consistent with Brandeis' educational philosophy.

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