Campus & Community

Shop till you drop — or add

5 min read

Students embrace ritual of sampling semester’s courses

For one week at the beginning of each semester, students at Harvard can take any class they can fit into their busy days. Many take full advantage of the sampling opportunity known as shopping week.

One day before the registration deadline, Emma van der Terrell, M.T.S. candidate ’18, had locked down her first semester at Harvard Divinity School. Originally planning to shop six classes on top of a requirement and a language elective, her advisor suggested that juggling eight classes might be ambitious for a first-year graduate student. Though Emma eventually settled on four, she is still mulling over that fifth class.

Senior Thomas Hewing ’17 still had some decisions to make by the deadline, but said he’s got his four classes “pretty settled.” Mostly done with his requirements, Thomas is anticipating a relatively easy fall, though he still shopped seven classes.

— By John Baglione/Harvard Correspondent

Friends since freshman year, Emily Jones (left) and Abigail Orlando finally have a class together. They head into Maxwell Dworkin during shopping week at Harvard. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
Yasmine Meroz teaches “Series Expansions and Complex Analysis,” a class that introduces fundamental concepts for solving real-world problems and emphasizes their applications through examples from the physical and social sciences. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
Jing Leung ’18 (left) and Regan Kology ’18 take “Series Expansions and Complex Analysis.” Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
Angela S. Allan, lecturer on history and literature, teaches “American Economic Fictions.” The course considers the culture of American capitalism through an examination of a range of literary and historical texts. Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer
Students watch a clip from “The Lego Movie” during “American Economic Fictions.” Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer
Students gather in the dance studio to take “Contemporary Dance: Countertechnique” from Joy Davis (center), a certified Countertechnique expert, dancer, choreographer and educator. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Students including Sophie Carroll ’17 (right) participate in Joy Davis’ class “Contemporary Dance: Countertechnique.” Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Tajrean Rahman ’20, Varoun Gulati ’19, and other students participate in Daniel Donoghue’s class “The History of the English Language.” Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
Virgilio Almeida, the CAPES distinguished visiting professor, teaches “The Internet: Governance and Power.” The course covers cyberspace governance. Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer
Alan Bidart ’18 (left) listens intently during Virgilio Almeida’s class “The Internet: Governance and Power.” Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer
Jacob Olupona, professor of African and African American studies and professor of African religious traditions, teaches “Introduction to African Studies.” The course introduces students to the general outlines of African archaeology, history, and geography, as well as key concepts in the study of African health, social life, economic situation, arts, and politics. Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer
During “Silkscreen,” Annette Lemieux (from far left to right) and teaching fellow Amelia Spinney teach Yao Li ’18 inside the Carpenter Center. The course teaches the manipulation of found and original imagery, and monotypes on paper and other surfaces utilizing the silkscreen process. Through slide presentations, the class is introduced to the work of artists such as Bob Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, as well as others who use the silkscreen process. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Teaching fellow Amelia Spinney (standing) operates the slideshow in Annette Lemieux’s (center) “Silkscreen” class. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Ann Blair, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, discusses religion and Raphael’s “Disputation of the Sacrament” during “Reason and Faith in the West” in Emerson Hall. This course uses a historical perspective to examine one of the central themes in the Western intellectual tradition: the desire to reconcile rational philosophy with religious and biblical authority. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
L. Mahadevan teaches “Fluid Dynamics” in the Cruft Building. The course explores continuum mechanics; conservation of mass and momentum; energy, stress, kinematics, and constitutive equations; vector and tensor calculus; and dimensional analysis and scaling. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students Tina Huang (from left) and Paul Le Floch, and Yashraj Narang, a teaching fellow in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, listen as L. Mahadevan explains the connection between Jackson Pollock’s paintings and the field of fluid dynamics. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Shelley Carson teaches “Creativity: Madmen, Geniuses, and Harvard Students.” Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Students including Andrew Roney ’17 (left) and Veronica Kane ’18 (right) gather in a William James Hall seminar room to hear Shelley Carson teach. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
During “Foundations of Biological Diversity” inside the Science Center, biology professor Brian Farrell, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, teaches an integrated approach to the diversity of life, emphasizing how chemical, physical, genetic, ecological, and geologic processes contribute to the origin and maintenance of biological diversity. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Jenny Walsh ’17 (center) listens during “Foundations of Biological Diversity,” taught by Brian Farrell, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
Students file into Harvard Hall for classes during “shopping period” at Harvard University. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer