The implications of shopping period

Brown's Open Curriculum epitomizes the expansion of decision making. Forty years after the implementation of the curriculum, we have the ability to choose everything about our course load. While some schools have distribution requirements or a core set of required classes, Brunonians run free, picking and choosing what they would like to take.

For students at other universities, who are confined to more rigid tracks of courses, this complete freedom to make choices can be enviable. As a freshman, I spent hours putting classes into my Mocha shopping cart, much to the amazement of a friend at another school in a highly specialized program with little choice.

So our divergent curriculum — arguably at comparable institutions — beg the question: which one of us was happier?

While Brown's open curriculum encourages individuality and choices, for the confused student, this can be an overwhelming task, inducing questions of interest and identity. Our educational futures are placed in our hands and it can be a daunting burden — we are entirely responsible for the outcomes. There are even courses on self-discovery and decision-making for those of us who are just too conflicted to make up our minds.

The question of confirmation bias becomes dangerous in a requirement-free setting. For students who come to Brown, biased against math, the ability to avoid it all together both confirms and validates their dislike. Maybe this is not a bad thing — the social efficiency model of education would argue that students should specialize as early as possible in those subjects most relevant to their futures. And it is not 100 percent foolproof: pre-med students are required to take a writing course and most social sciences come with an attached statistics requirement.

And perhaps Brown is retreating from the free choice model a bit (to the chagrin of many students). Just today it was announced that the writing requirement will now be enforced for all students. Though it would be nearly impossible to go four years without demonstrating proficiency in writing, it is the perceived limitation on freedom that is upsetting to the liberal-minded student body. Brennan and Schmidtz wrote that "we can be mistaken about whether we are choosing," and in this situation, it's hard to know whether this will actually change the academic path of any students.

Choice is one of Brown's selling factors to applicants, but is too much choice a bad thing? Do we just need more guidelines? Or are we already making the best possible choices because only we, as 20-something individuals, know what is best for ourselves?