By Yechiel Amar, Staff Writer
The Yeshiva College (YC) Core Curriculum is designed to give students exposure to multiple disciplines of knowledge. The hope is that, through this process, they’ll discover their chosen area of study, and so that those who already have a path set in mind will receive a well-rounded education and gain thinking skills to succeed in life’s various areas. The university believes that this is accomplished by taking classes with “core” attributes; such as Cultures Over Time (CUOT), Human Behavior and Social Institutions (HBSI) and Experimental and Quantitative Methods (EXQM), among others. These attributes are usually attached to entry level classes with a clear reasoning behind why they qualify; no one questions why Media and Politics is a HBSI and Intro to Statistics is an EXQM. However, there is one core requirement that defies explanation or reason: the Writing Intensive requirement (WRIN).
On the YC Core Curriculum webpage, the entry explaining WRIN is the only one absent, replaced by a link to another website instead. This link takes users to a Wix website detailing what the Writing Intensive designation entails. It lists information as to what faculty support students can expect from WRIN course professors, as well as the benefits students will receive from these courses. The language is quite vague; the only piece of information that identifies this requirement as writing related is a line stating that “Writing-Intensive courses will help students be able to recognize that different academic disciplines utilize different styles and conventions while simultaneously underscoring that writing is a shared value.” Otherwise, the buzzwords and phrases could be used to describe all the core requirements in general. There is no real cohesive idea that marks this as a distinctive category that other core requirements do not already inherently provide. There is only ambiguity.
One would think that these courses would be, as the title suggests, “Writing Intensive.” One might even assume that writing classes would especially fit this description and would most certainly have this attribute. Yet, if one looks at the list of courses offered for YC in spring 2025 with the WRIN attribute, they should prepare to be surprised.
Though multiple writing centered classes are being taught this semester, such as Writing the Self: Art of the Memoir and Intro to Creative Writing, these classes lack WRIN designation. It is instead bestowed on classes such as Evolution of the Skyscraper, Advanced Experimental Physics and History of Modern Russia. I’m not saying these classes aren’t “writing-intensive;” they might be for all I know. But how is it these classes have the designation, while literal writing classes don’t?
The case becomes all the more curious when one looks a semester back to see what courses had WRIN then. A class there, Face to Face: Modern Identities in Film has the designation, yet this same class this semester, taught by the same professor, is not a WRIN course. Interpreting Texts has the attribute this semester too, an attribute it lacked when I took it in spring 2024. There seems to be little rhyme or reason as to what gets the WRIN attribute, which is significant, as YC students agonize every semester over which classes they should take over others in order to fulfill requirements and their major. It is an affront to students for there to be such incoherent logic at play here.
I would be remiss in saying that the Writing Intensive is the only core requirement with problems. It is a symptom of a system in need of a wellcheck. The core system, the secular and the Jewish core, is something that all YC students must engage in and as such, it warrants a consideration to its works that seemingly is not being provided. I am sure that many students have their own issues with these systems, and so I call on us all to make our voices heard on these issues so that the administration takes note and gets them resolved.
Because if a class with writing in the name somehow isn’t a “Writing-Intensive,” then something has to change.
Photo Credit; The YC core requirements fact sheet
Photo Credit: Emily Goldberg / the YU Observer