January 2003 - Division of Medical Sciences Bulletin - Harvard ...

The Harvard University BBS website: January Bulletin
other will be a Developmental Genetics and Genomics course,
taught by Gary Ruvkin, Mark Vidal and Norbert Perrimon, which will
discuss using classical genetic approaches and genomics to answer
developmental questions. Other departments will hopefully find
similar ways to develop courses to fill students' needs. Additionally,
we may see more upper level semester-long discussion courses
offered. These courses will take less planning on the part of faculty
members, as there will be few if any lectures to plan, and will also
be satisfying for students, many of whom enjoy learning in this type
of structured discussion setting.
While the number of courses offered is increasing, why are eight
courses required in the first place? According to Cepko, this is not
the way the program was originally designed. When the BBS
program began, the original requirement was for six courses. The
thought process was that students could complete their work in the
core courses, and still have one elective they could use to take an
upper level course. With only one elective to "spend" however, there
were only a limited number of students available to fill the large
number of available spaces in upper level courses. Many wonderful
upper level courses offered were eventually lost because they were
not populated with students. In order to counter this problem, the
program had to up the course requirement to find a steady state
between the number of students available to take upper level
courses and the number of different courses offered. The number
that worked best was to require eight courses. This provides
students with an education that has both breadth and depth, which
the faculty believes is the best possible training.
There is much that students can do to help this process along. In
the spring, there are feedback meetings for G1 and G2 students to
discuss ways to improve current courses, and suggest new courses
to faculty members. Attendance at the meeting will ensure that your
voice will be heard! In addition, any student who has a course
suggestion can email Connie Cepko or Bob Kingston, who head up
the curriculum committee. Cepko said that there are many faculty
members who are interested in teaching, but they don't know what
students are interested in learning about. Knowing what students
want will make it easier to fill that need. All suggestions of courses
will be heard, however suggestions most likely to become a reality
will be those supported by several students.
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