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Marcy Bauman wrote: > FYComp seems centrally inportant to me for the following > reasons: > > * For many undergraduates, it's the only course where they're dealing > with a small number of people, who they actually get to know. As such, > it serves a MAJOR acclimatizing role within the university. This is a good argument for small classes, but I'd argue, and stuff like Harvard Seminars would support this I think, that small classes could serve this role as well in biochemistry as in FYComp. > * FYComp provides an avenue where people can learn about discourse > communities in general, and the discourse communities of the > university in particular. Again, I'd argue that being immersed in the discourse community of biochemistry would teach a student a great deal about the discourse community of the university. Of course, the school cafeteria or pub can also play this role: I remember many a late night conversation that crossed disciplinary lines in interesting ways. It provides a venue for us to make explicit some of the > teacit assumptions of other disciplines, other professors. It's a way to > say, "Hey! This isn't high school!" in very tangible ways. Of course, a class of 200 also has this effect. > I'm not sure FYComp is the best place to accomplish those objectives > but I think they're important ones. If those of us south of the border > abolished FYComp, we'd need to come up with some way to answer those > objectives in another way. This is my point. Is FYC the best place to accomplish the social goals? Does it have goals that are more essential to FYC rather than to good academic counselling? I don't want you to abolish FYComp either because if you did, the lit.heads in Canada would smile :) and say, see, it doesn't work. Of course they already say that, but without the "see". For those who have eyes to see ... Rob