Liu Yu "Why is Harvard University so awesome?"

An inspirational article by Professor Tsinghua University, poet and writer Liu Yu: Why is Harvard University so awesome?

I worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard for a year, and I basically had no other tasks except collecting money. In order not to stay at home all day and count the thin stack of money over and over again, I decided to take some classes.

That day, I went to the school where I worked and expressed my intention to the secretary of the office. What she said is very simple, no problem, as long as the professor agrees. I asked, is there a list of social science courses? Let me see what courses are available. I imagined a few pages when I asked, and I could stand there and turn them over. As a result, the weak female secretary suddenly pulled out a monster and handed it to me. I reached for it and almost dislocated my arm on the spot because I was overwhelmed.

You see, on the cover of this 1000 page gadget, a few lines are printed impressively:

Harvard university 2006-2007 teaching course.

College of Arts and Sciences.

Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

In other words, Harvard listed more than 65,438+0,000 pages in one breath, just to briefly introduce (generally 3-5 lines) the curriculum and courses of undergraduate and liberal arts colleges. I estimate that if we make a list of all Harvard courses, we will have to go around the equator for a week or two.

I used to take classes at Columbia University and felt that I had seen the world. Now, holding this behemoth, I have a sad feeling. King Jinlun suddenly came to Xiao Feng and Lu Yu, and the school sense established in the past six years immediately turned into pieces of flying debris, drifting with the wind.

Take it back to your office and study it carefully. Like a hungry man, he took a menu full of all kinds of delicious food, swallowed and continued reading. At the end of reading, it is the feeling that the heroine meets the hero in The Bridges of Madison County. The previous peaceful marriage with her husband didn't count. This is true love.

Of course, what I love most is not only the number of courses offered by Harvard, but also the humanization of the courses it offers. From time to time, the domestic media will raise the topic of "university spirit" for discussion. Basically, everyone will reach a consensus: universities are not vocational training institutions, and university spirit should not be just the spirit of training work skills. It is said that what universities should edify is a humanistic spirit. Although the word "humanities" is too close to the word "literati", it is already stinking. I think everyone should give it another chance.

Harvard University is a first-class university, of course, because it has the most money, and then used it to buy the most advanced equipment and hire the best professors. But at the same time, it is also because it contains rich humanistic spirit, which is most concentrated in its "core curriculum" (Columbia University also has it, but it is dwarfed by Harvard).

The so-called "core courses" are a series of basic courses provided by the school to undergraduates, and students must choose several courses as compulsory courses. The purpose of these basic courses is to let students have a framework understanding and exploration of the world they live in before entering the details of knowledge. In this way, when he is in his major, he can know that what he has learned is only a capillary in a huge organism.

Excerpt from the description of "core curriculum": "The philosophy of core currency is based on the belief that every Harvard graduate should receive a broad education and receive training in a specific academic major or professional field. It assumes that students need some guidance in achieving this goal, and teachers have the obligation to guide them to knowledge, intellectual skills and thinking habits, which are the signs of educated people. "

Harvard's "core curriculum" is divided into seven parts: foreign culture; Historical research; Literature and art; Moral reasoning; Quantitative reasoning; Science; Social analysis. Taking the moral reasoning section as an example, the courses given include:

1, democracy and equality 2, justice 3, international relations and ethics 4, basic problems in ethics 5, Confucian humanism 6, theism and moral concept 7, ego, freedom and existence 8, slavery in western political thought 9, moral basis of social resistance 10, theory and practice of Republican government1/kloc-

Taking science as an example, the courses given are: 1, the essence of light and matter; 2. air; 3. Matter in the universe; 4. Observe the sun and stars; 5. time; 6. Einstein Revolution; 7. Environmental risks and disasters; 8. Physics in reality; 9. Cosmic connection; Music and sound physics; 1 1. the invisible world: science and technology and public policy; 12, energy, environment and industrial development; Life is a planetary phenomenon; Other plates, not listed, are too long.

Basically, the purpose of the "core course" is to let students have a look at the forest before they start learning about trees. It's best to print this forest map in your mind so that you won't get lost on the smallest road in the future. Let me list some courses in the "Freshmen Workshop"-I'm not sure about the purpose and origin of this workshop, but the names of some courses are very attractive. Because the list is too long, I only list those courses that interest me-that is, if I have three heads and six arms, I will go to them.

1, human evolution 2, evolution of wings 3, history of bacteria 4, galaxy and universe 5, chess and mathematics 6, words of disease 7, brief history of DNA 8, American child health policy 9, nature of moral judgment 10, water on Mars 1 1, pharmaceutical companies and global health 650. 16, love in Russian novels 17, skepticism and knowledge 18, research on a community 19, Christianity and beauty 20, how to appreciate painting 2 1, Faust 22, white people among black writers 23, and cultural history of bananas 23. Internet and law 28, America in 1970s 29, American creed exceptionalism and nationalism 30, language and politics 3 1, trust and democracy 32, American presidential election 33, youth culture in 1960s 34, piracy 35, global warming and public policy 36, contemporary India 37, public health and inequality 38. The history of the cemetery. Human rights. Political speech and American democracy. The concept of "crime". Nationalism in modern European countries. The history of tobacco. Torture and modern law. The rise of psychological experiments.

You see, there are 45 in this random column. For a person with a strong thirst for knowledge, these courses are simply a feast, and I don't know where to start with chopsticks. I wonder if Tsinghua Peking University can offer some of the above 45 courses to children aged 18 who just left their hometown.

I believe that the essence of university spirit is not to make us profound, but to restore the innocence of human nature. Naive people will endlessly ask the truth of this world. About nature and society. What universities want to create is Darwin's innocence, Einstein's innocence, Hegel's innocence and Gu Zhun's innocence. That is, those "mature people" despise "nerds". "Mature people" are always telling you that what exists is reasonable, and what is reasonable should not be pursued and changed.

The real humanities education is to lead a group of children to break through the short-sightedness brought by secularism and come under the stars. The whole world, including politics, economy, culture, history, mathematics, physics, biology and psychology, shines like stars in the deep blue sky. Adults hold hands and tell children what the star is called, how far it is from us and why it is there.

I read Wang Lu Xiaoyou's article two days ago, and one sentence was very interesting. Referring to a phenomenon in China, he said: two institutions that are not even universities actually argue that they are not first-class universities.

I haven't paid much attention to it, so I don't know much about it. It seems that several universities in Hong Kong have dug up several top candidates in the college entrance examination, and Tsinghua Peking University has started to beat its chest and feel that it is no longer "first-class". This kind of beating one's chest is a bit funny, as if Song Zude is sad that he is no longer a first-line actor. In fact, Tsinghua Peking University should really beat its chest and feet, but not for a few top candidates in the college entrance examination, but for the distance between itself and innocence.