Make the core friendlier for transfer students

Make the core friendlier for transfer students

Hillsdale’s core curriculum can overwhelm students who arrive at Hillsdale as freshmen. For transfer students like me, it’s often an insurmountable obstacle to timely graduation. 

The core represents a noble and valuable approach to education. It furthers Hillsdale’s commitment to the Western Tradition by making sure that students are familiar with its foundational texts and ideas. But it’s weakened significantly by its inflexibility. 

As a habit, the registrar will not allow transfer students to apply for credit from their previous institution toward the core curriculum (with the notable exception of STEM classes.) While this policy is clearly meant to emphasize the importance of Hillsdale’s unique curriculum and ensure that all students receive the same fundamental instruction, its strictness is unreasonable. Even if you can provide a syllabus showing that one of the classes you took at your last school covered much of the same material as a core class, you still will almost certainly not be allowed to apply it to the core. 

This poses significant problems for transfer students, who have often already completed core classes for their previous schools. Instead of translating into something that can help them complete graduation requirements at Hillsdale, those classes turn into a gratuitous pile of electives. 

Fitting core requirements into one’s schedule is especially difficult considering the additional burden of major requirements. The limited time transfer students have to pick and pursue their majors can prevent them from pursuing majors they’re passionate about or lead them to  commit to whatever major logistically fits in their schedule regardless of their interest in the subject. (This is assuming they can make any major work for their intended graduation schedule.)

For many transfers, completing major requirements on top of the core means several additional years of schooling. 

The no-negotiation approach to the core curriculum might make sense if the core curriculum were more streamlined and unique. Yet, there is a lot of redundancy in the content covered by various core classes. In my limited experience of Hillsdale’s core, Western Heritage overlaps with both Constitution and The Western Philosophical Tradition, which both overlap with each other. 

Additionally, as a transfer student who has now taken five semesters worth of English core at several schools, I can say that the material covered in Great Books is much the same as freshman English seminars at other institutions, give or take a few specific titles. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, but it makes the unflinching rigidity of transfer credit requirements especially frustrating, 

Thankfully, there are several fairly easy ways to solve this issue. 

The first kind of solution involves preserving the existing policing of not applying transfer credit to the core but making it easier for transfers to complete major requirements. Introducing a liberal arts or liberal studies major would take a great deal of burden off transfer students by allowing their previously earned credit to apply toward their major. Making the college’s design-your-own major program more accessible would be similarly helpful.

The other kind of solution involves finding creative ways to shorten the duration of the core. Given that so much of the core revolves around reading, this should doable. For example, Hillsdale could give transfer students a summer reading list of core texts, then offer them accelerated courses of instruction in the Fall that could be completed in a fraction of a semester. Mastery exams or big projects would allow them to demonstrate proficiency in necessary skills and prove their familiarity with the material. Online or summer courses could also serve a similar function.

Any of these solutions would serve as a gesture of support from the college, acknowledging the unique challenges posed by demanding core requirements and supporting its students in facing those challenges.



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