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 As I think more and more about the notion of “scientific literacy” in the general population, I struggle to think of particular concepts or subjects taught in a traditional intro biology class that would be beneficial for everyone to know. Certainly there are hot topics in the press that would be useful to have knowledge of such as stem cells and cloning etc if an individual wanted to get involved in such debates/be able to understand such debates. However, I think the fact is that there are just some people who will never, ever, be interested in acquiring any of the foundations of biology, or anything of the sort.

I think this is the problem with having divisional requirements such as the ones we have at Bryn Mawr. On the one hand, I think it’s a fantastic idea for all students to have the opportunity to actually get a diverse education, but on the other hand, I think that the idea of taking a “real” science is so off-putting to many humanities-oriented students, that it sours the whole experience for them. I think the idea of a non-major section and a major section is a really appealing one. With this, there is the opportunity for the non-science student body to get involved in the science community in a fashion that will perhaps give them a better opinion of the sciences, and allow them to get some very basic fundamentals—I don’t know if this would result in a significant contribution to the scientific literacy of the general population, but it might be a start?