The rationale behind the undergraduate curriculum for science students is one of the enduring mysteries of American college and university education. Most science students will major in a single department. That department will require an upper division curriculum that is almost entirely contained within the department in question and will take responsibility for the content of those courses in a more or less rational fashion. Admitting that breadth is of some relevance, that department also sends its students off to take required courses in other related science departments. It names the subjects—and then completely abdicates the responsibility for the content of those courses to the outside departments.
The excuse offered for this procedure is that the content of a physics course, for example, must be the responsibility of the physics department, and must certainly not be prescribed by other departments—departments incapable of understanding physics. How can the tradition and mode...
