21 Easiest Courses at Havard University 

Harvard University is an Ivy League research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and established in the year 1636, whose history, Impact, and wealth have made it one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Here are the easiest courses you can study at Harvard if you are aspiring to study a course that is easy to be accepted.

It was originally established by the Massachusetts legislature and soon thereafter named for John Harvard who happened to be its first benefactor. Harvard University is the United States’ oldest institution of higher learning, and the Harvard Corporation is its first chartered corporation.

Although it was never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College basically trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its year 1977 merger with Radcliffe College.

Harvard University has grown at a consistent pace to become a full-fledged University. This great institution of learning is made up of eleven (11) major academic units; the University provides graduate, undergraduate, and professional education to around 21,000 students.

Do you want to enroll for a degree in this prestigious institution of learning and are considering the easiest and most exciting courses? Well, this article is for you. We have made a compilation of the 21 easiest courses one can study at Harvard University.

Here are the lists of 21 easiest courses at Harvard University

Visual and Environmental Studies

 Undergraduate Studies

The concentration in Visual and Environmental Studies nurtures skills in both the practice and the critical study of the visual arts. Its basic components  include

  • photography
  • filmmaking
  • animation
  • video art
  • painting
  • drawing
  • printmaking and
  • sculpture

The patterns of teaching combine the rate of conservatory programs with the wide intellectual aims of a liberal arts college.

Within VES, there are three (3) different areas of focus

1)studio arts

2) film/video making, and

3) film and visual studies

Each of these areas has slightly different requirements. In-studio arts and film/video, majors work toward comprehensive accomplishment in a specific area of artistic production while tactically exploring a range of other practices.

For film and visual studies, majors pursue interdisciplinary approaches to the theory and history of images, space, art, and media.

In all areas, the VES majors work closely with faculty, predominantly in studios and small seminars, to derive understanding through both study and practice.

Upon graduation, majors in VES enter a wide range of fields. Some may decide to pursue careers as artists or filmmakers, while others go into media and communications. Among the graduate schools to which VES majors are admitted are schools of architecture, animation, art, film, and photography, as well as graduate schools of arts and sciences, medicine, and business.

REQUIREMENTS

12 courses (48 credits)

Theater, Dance, and Media | Courses at Harvard University

Theater, Dance, and Media (TDM) bring together a historical and theoretical study with creative art-making. It is taught by FAS Faculty, a group of experienced professionals from the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.)

Students are introduced to the rigor and discipline required to hone the interlocking fields out of which theatre, dance, and media practices are designed and composed.  The goal of the majors is to combine rigorous conservatory-style training with an intellectual approach to art-making. Students are encouraged to list broadly across all art forms, including literature, music, and the visual arts, all so important to the performing arts.

The majors stress collaboration. Actors, producers, directors, choreographers, dancers, writers, designers, and stage managers necessarily come together to work and create and produce a successful performance. Many of our studio courses model this kind of collaboration.

Adding to the required coursework, students pursuing the Theater, Dance, and Media majors will have the opportunity to take part in at least two (2) TDM major production studio courses led by professional directors, choreographers, and designers. Majors will also obtain technical skills that are of value through both working on the crew for at least one (1) concentration show, as well as through studio design classes and the production training modules.

REQUIREMENTS

Elective Program: 12 courses (48 credits)

Statistics | Courses at Harvard University

Statistics is a somewhat young discipline, organized around the spray growing body of knowledge about principled methods for data collection and data analysis. It also has to do with the making of rational decisions under uncertainty and the modeling of randomness in any quantitative inquiries, including the social, natural, and medical sciences.

A basic goal of the Statistics majors is to acquire the conceptual, computational, and mathematical tools for valuing uncertainty and making sense of complex data arising from many applications.

It also includes statistically sound ways of collecting such data. The mathematical preparation requires multivariable calculus and linear algebra to the level of Mathematics 19A and 19B or perhaps Mathematics 21A and 21B or above.

The Statistics program is a flexible program that permits as many as half of the fourteen (14) courses required for honors qualified to be taken in departments other than Statistics.

Because Statistics offers the privilege to branch out and explore a wide range of areas, it appeals to students who wish to acquire center skills while preserving their chance for a broad general education.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 12 courses (48 credits)

Sociology | Courses at Harvard University

Sociology is the study of society and of the social structures within which we live our lives. More than most disciplines, it is a meeting place of the social sciences, combining its own original ideas and methods with insights from history, anthropology, economics, political science, and psychology in an extended examination of the ways societies work or, perhaps, fail to work.

Offering an understanding view of the social world, sociology is fundamental to a liberal arts education.

Their students receive instruction in classical and contemporary social theory together with cutting-edge qualitative and quantitative methods. The emphasis here varies widely from the theoretical to the applied and incorporates an array of approaches, including field-based sociology, quantitative analysis, ethnography, historical and comparative studies, computer-based analysis, and theoretical explorations.

Sociology majors can be employable in a list of occupations, including;

Law, medicine, education, business, consulting, finance, public health, and journalism, and I can eventually work in non-profit organizations and the public sector.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 12 courses (48 credits)

Psychology | Courses at Harvard University

Psychology is a scientific study of the mind, and as such, they investigate the minds of humans and other species. They study to understand the mind at many different levels of analysis, from taking measurements from the brain through learning about the individual, and furthermore, understanding groups and organizations.

  • The basic questions psychologists attempt to answer are:
  • How do we perceive the physical world?
  • Does our view of it coincide with reality?
  • How do we make sense of the social world?
  • Can we really understand the minds of others?
  • Which others, and do the groups “they” belong to matter?
  • Why do we pay attention to some things and not others?
  • How do memories form and how do we forget?
  • Can we be said to have a memory even if we can’t “remember”?
  • What are the causes of these kinds of disorders, and how can they be treated?
  • Are we rational beings or only boundedly so?
  • Why do we believe in religion, do we have unshakable feelings of morality, and how best should we study our own consciousness?
  • How do all these processes develop from infancy to adulthood?

In an attempt to answer these and perhaps many other arising questions about the mind, psychologists pay close attention to some factors like ;

  • evolutionary factors
  • biological bases
  • cultural and social inputs, as well
  • day-to-day situations in which individuals find themselves.

Almost all the research conducted in Harvard’s Department of Psychology had to do with the basic psychological processes such as

  • attention
  • perception
  • memory
  • categorization
  • reasoning
  • decision-making
  • language cognitive and social development, social
  • cognition
  • intergroup relations, and morality.

As part of a liberal arts education, the chief aim of Psychology is to provide students with a fundamental understanding of the human mind.

REQUIREMENTS

General Track in Psychology

Basic Requirements: 12 courses (48 credits)

Religion | Harvard University Courses

The Committee on the Study of Religion renders courses on religious traditions from around the globe and across time. The program engages a wide list of approaches to the study of religion, humanitarianism and social science. This includes historical studies, ethnographic studies of contemporary communities, the psychology of religion, and a close examination of classic texts from major religious traditions.

Students major in an understanding of one (1) or two (2) of the major religious traditions of the world through the study of sacred books, rituals, and symbols which are philosophy and theology, and then the lived experiences and history of participants in the tradition.

This program stresses the acquisition of certain skills:

  • The arts of reading and interpreting texts, practices, and societies.
  • clear writing (essays are also part of the requirements of the sophomore and junior tutorials)
  • an understanding of the primary modern literature on the theory of religion and of the methods of the study of religion.

Majors draw up an individual concentration plan of study under the supervision of the Director of Undergraduate Studies. There are four (4) options for a concentration:

  • a focus on two religious traditions (or one tradition and one thematic focus)
  • a focus on a single tradition
  • a joint concentration with religion as the primary field of study
  • a joint concentration with another field as the primary field of study.

All four (4) programs involve requiring general, methodological, or comparative courses outside of the major religious tradition that is being studied.

REQUIREMENTS

Non-honors: 12 courses (48 credits) / Honors: 14 courses (56 credits)

Philosophy | Harvard University Courses

Philosophy studies many of humanity’s core questions. Some of these questions surface when we reflect on the most basic and the most widely shared elements of human experience:

  • what kind of life should we live?
  • which kind of society should we want?
  • what makes one system of belief better than another?
  • It’s being more rational?
  • What are the limits of human knowledge?

Whether in the street, court, classroom, or lab, we often assume direct answers to these questions. Most of these answers and even the questions themselves are derivatives of a centuries-old philosophical tradition that has shaped and remolded our society and culture.

Philosophy aims to reflect on these questions and answers in a systematic, explicit, and rigorous way through a careful study of the tradition, relying on careful argumentation. These fields have their own  philosophical questions raised:

  • does neuroscience show us that we lack free will?
  • how should we interpret quantum mechanics?
  • what is the source of political rights?
  • what are the limits and obligations of the state?
  • when and why is punishment justified?
  • how should a constitution be interpreted?
  • what is beauty?
  • are there “objective” standards for works of art?

Philosophical questions are virtually everywhere. If you often find yourself drawn to them, studying philosophy in college (especially Harvard University) is likely the best opportunity in your life to address them.

The department offers a rich list of classes to choose from, and students develop their own convictions to the philosophical problems that attract them in conjunction with their study of philosophical writing.

The department’s introductory courses help students develop their reading, writing, and reasoning skills while mastering them with wide surveys of major areas and historical periods. It is more advanced courses primarily deal with more specific topics and give room for students to explore their interests in the context of the broad foundation they acquired in the introductory courses.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 12 courses (48 credits)

Music | Harvard University Courses

A major in Music exposes students to a list of musical styles, sounds, and musical traditions.

This is to develop their understanding of music in different cultural and historical contexts. It also provides a solid foundation in theory, analysis, composition, and criticism while developing critical listening skills. Even though the Department of Music is not in itself a school of music with a performance department, every one of its courses supports the intellectual development of musicians, and several of the courses focus on performance.

They offer a wide list of introductory and advanced courses in music theory, composition, historical musicology, and ethnomusicology, in addition to many other courses that focus on musical performance.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 10 courses (40 credits)

Cellular Biology | Harvard University Courses

The study of Molecular and Cellular Biology deals with the intersection of modern research in cellular biology with medicine and society.

It has its origin in the investigation of biological processes based on the study of molecules and their interactions in the context of cells and tissues.

This is also in understanding how the various information context of the genome orchestrates the behavior of the cell. This course is, therefore, ideal for students who wish to study molecular and cellular processes at the core of both normal physiology and disease.

MCB majors are taught to acquire an understanding of scientific logic and approach as they explore a list of modern subjects.

Through their coursework and hands-on research, students will be able to explore many of the central questions in modern biology and medicine.

The faculty is committed to supporting undergraduate research and encouraging students to join the laboratory of an MCB faculty member or a laboratory in one of the affiliated Centers, which are

  • Harvard Medical School
  • Harvard School of Public Health and affiliated institutes.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 12-13 courses (48 -52 credits)

Linguistics | Harvard University Courses

Since this wonderful course is not taught in high school, most undergraduates, including many future Linguistics majors, only come to the knowledge of it after they come to college.

This department is here because they understand that students are interested in linguistics for many reasons.

Many students who are curious about linguistics but who have never taken a linguistics course often think that it is strictly a subject for people with an extensive background in foreign languages. This notion is incorrect.

The courses offered by the Department of Linguistics show how diverse the field is. Their major emphases are on linguistic theory, historical linguistics, and the relationship between language and cognition.

Every normal child learns a language between the ages of one (1) and five (5). Linguistics seeks to characterize this knowledge directly and to provide for the ease and speed with which humans acquire it. Given the fact that the majority of the knowledge that enables us to speak and use language is unconscious, most people are ignorant of its almost unbelievable complexity and richness.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 12 courses (48 credits)

Requirements for Honors Eligibility

-14 courses (56 credits)

Integrative Biology | Harvard University Free Courses

The study of Integrative Biology (IB) is designed to provide students with opportunities to view topics across all of biology and also to focus in detail on areas of particular interest.

Students who are considering IB as a major are encouraged to complete the three (3) introductory courses, which are Life Sciences 1a, 1b, OEB 10 by the end of their sophomore year.

From the foundation of these introductory courses, students are exposed to one or more areas in depth by taking upper-level courses.

For many students, the major will climax in independent research leading to a senior thesis, but however, a thesis is not the only way by which a student may participate in research.  The major also provides students with opportunities to study biological diversity in the field. IB does not participate in joint majors but will consider senior theses that incorporate work from a secondary field.

REQUIREMENTS

13 courses (52 credits)

History and Science | Harvard University Free Courses

History and Science is a flourishing interdisciplinary field of study at Harvard. They are also small and friendly, with a real sense of community. They pride themselves on finding ways to model students’ individual interests through a flexible curriculum and opportunities for one on one instruction.

Why should I consider History and Science?

History and Science can make a good choice for you if:

  • You would like to do significant work in some area of science (any field taught in the College)
  • As a person, you are curious and wish to know the ways in which science, medicine, or technology is affected by and in turn affects, important issues in politics, industry, and policy.
  • You are interested in big questions — the existence of God, the nature of free will, the roots of human morality, and more.
  • Want to enroll in a medical school and would like a concentration that allows you to count many of your premed science requirements?

REQUIREMENTS

History of Science Track

Basic Requirements: 11 courses (44 credits)

Literature | Harvard University Free Courses

History and Literature are the oldest majors at Harvard.

Individual and small group tutorials here are the heart of History and Literature. They also provide students with instruction and mentoring as well as chances to pursue specific topics in-depth and a general framework within which the many elements of a student’s plan of concentration may be combined. Majors take concentration courses across a list of departments and programs:

Romance Languages and Literature

  • African and African American Studies
  • Visual and Environmental Studies
  • History of Art and Architecture
  • Theater, Dance and Media
  • Music

Women, Gender, and Sexuality

As well as History, English and many more.

Students take a History and Literature tutorial each semester they are in major.

During the fall semester of the junior tutorial, groups of three (3) students come together and design a course of study with the guidance of an instructor. In the junior spring, students’ focus changes to researching and writing their junior essays.

REQUIREMENTS

14 courses (56 credits)

Science and Public Policy | Harvard University Free Courses

This course is founded on the conclusion that the ability to form rational judgments concerning many of the challenges facing society today involving the environment requires an understanding of the underlying scientific and technical issues.

It also extends to an appreciation for the relevant economic, political, legal, historical, and ethical dimensions. Every student here has to meet the core of requirements in the physical, biological, and social sciences and mathematics. Students may be encouraged to substitute more advanced courses for these requirements depending on the preparation.

In the junior year, students are subject to one or more seminars to complement their field of specialization. The seminars are seen as a central integrating component of the concentration.

The seminars deal with a number of current environmental issues comprehensively and in-depth. They are being taught by a number of departments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

During the senior year, students go through a project in which they conduct a deep examination of a particular issue in the environment that falls in line with their field and thereby apply the skills and knowledge gained in their courses and tutorial experiences.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 13 courses (52 credits)

Government | Harvard University Free Courses

The study of Government introduces students to the discipline of political science, which is the study of power in all of its many forms and consequences. The aim is to prepare students to lead engaged civic lives and to make known to them the ways in which political scientists explain and analyze the social and political world around them.

The government covers many different subjects, which include;

  • the philosophy and ethics of exercising power and the history of political ideas (political theory)
  • the operation of politics in the United States
  • the diversity of political regimes, institutions, and behaviors in the contemporary world and the significance of these divergences (comparative politics)
  • The interaction among international actors, the causes of war, and peace.

Graduates of Government work in and across these disciplinary subfields using a large and varied tool kit: qualitative methods such as

  • historical and archival research
  • fieldwork, interviews, textual analysis and
  • Various quantitative approaches, including statistical analysis, formal modeling, and experiments.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 10 courses (40 credits)

English | Harvard University Free Courses

The undergraduate program opens students up to the full measure of imaginative literature written in the English language from the 8th century to its more recent scatter around the globe.

In the first three (3) terms, majors take three (3) common ground courses that include genre and modes, historical periods, and geographic dispersal in a way that lends coherence to an otherwise vast field.

Moving out from this context in the discipline, students are exposed to English literature and language through electives, guided in their choices by a faculty adviser.

A degree in English qualifies a student for any field in which careful reading, clear thinking, and persuasive writing are valued.

English majors go on to graduate school and to successful careers in business, law, education, medicine, and other fields too numerous to list. Sharpening the student’s powers of discernment as well as expanding his or her intellectual horizons is at the heart of a liberal education.

This program offers a list array of creative writing classes in

  • Poetry
  • Fiction
  • non-fiction, and
  • work for the screen and stage.

Even though students are admitted through application only, the classes are open to all undergraduates, including non-majors.

REQUIREMENTS

Elective Program: 11 courses (44 credits)

Comparative Literature | Harvard University Free Courses

Comparative Literature makes students capable to play an active and creative role in today’s world by revealing literature and culture across languages and national borders.

The flexible nature of the course allows students to develop a program of study both within and beyond the Humanities based on their particular languages and interests.

REQUIREMENTS

14 courses (56 credits)

Earth and Planetary Sciences | Harvard University Free Courses

Harvard renders outstanding opportunities for students who intend to pursue studies in Earth and planetary sciences.

Research and coursework in the Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS) department encircles a variety of science disciplines, technology, and applications to environmental and economic endeavors.

These are exciting times for the Earth and planetary sciences students because their discipline is of unprecedented importance to contemporary society.  As never before, we have a directive to better understand the consequences of human activities for the Earth’s atmosphere, the oceans, the solid Earth, and the organisms that live on it.

REQUIREMENTS

Requirements: 14 courses (56 credits)

Economics | Harvard University Free Courses

An economic analysis begins with the conclusion that individuals have goals and that they pursue those goals to the exclusion of any other thing.

Over the years, economics has focused on understanding prices, competitive markets, and the interactions between markets.  Today, economists address a remarkable list of social science questions.

  • Will school vouchers improve the quality of education?
  • Do politicians manipulate the business cycle?
  • What sort of legal regime best promotes economic development?
  • Why do cities have ghettos?
  • What can be done about grade inflation?
  • Why do people procrastinate in saving for retirement—or in doing their homework?

Economics today has turned to a scientific discipline. Bringing their particular view to the questions of social science, economics graduates formulate theories and collect evidence to test these theories against other ideas.

REQUIREMENTS

Basic Requirements: 11 courses (44 credits)

Environmental Science and Engineering | Harvard University Free Courses

Environmental Science and Engineering (ESE) understands, predicts, and responds to natural and human-induced environmental change.

It deals with environmental issues. It includes global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion, or local and regional air and water pollution requires perspectives from a diverse set of scientific disciplines. The disciplines may include ;

  • atmospheric physics and chemistry
  • oceanography
  • glaciology
  • hydrology
  • Geophysics
  • ecology, and
  • biogeochemistry

They view the environment as a complex set of interactions that is made complicated by the various activities of human society.

Through the browse of the underlying processes and feedback within the Earth system, and with a variety of approaches from theory and modeling to experiments and observations, they train students to think about environmental processes in an integrated fashion. Thus, preparing them to manage the environmental challenges we are faced with today.

Mythology | Harvard University Free Courses

Folklore and Mythology is a liberal education.

The program enhances the study of any given society through its language and culture, offering an order of choices for drawing on a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Majors engage in independent research on the material, oral, written, or performed forms of folklore and mythology.

The purpose of the basic courses outlined below is to provide its majors with a general knowledge of the materials of folklore and mythology.

REQUIREMENTS

14 courses (56 credits)

We recommend other scholarship opportunities.

Does this article meet your immediate needs? if yes, click the SHARE button to share with your friends. if no, leave a response on the comment box to express your concern or ask questions and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Comments are closed.

DISCLOSURE: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we receive a commission.


You May Also Like