Everyone knows about Mark Zuckerberg’s journey from Harvard graduate to Silicon Valley titan.
Zuckerberg’s story — along with many of Facebook’s legal issues — is often used to highlight the importance of ethics in technology, and in STEM more broadly. But at Harvard and beyond, we’ve overlooked a similar need for exposure to STEM among students in non-STEM fields, with profound implications for policy, ethics, and governance.
Harvard’s graduation requirements spell out inequality. STEM students must complete Expository Writing and three General Education courses as well as two division requirements in the social sciences and humanities. Meanwhile, humanities and social sciences students only take the GenEd and STEM placement courses, with the exception of the Quantitative Reasoning with Data course.
It’s a problem. Knowledgeable participation in public debates – such as environmental technology management, climate change, public health, or bioethics – requires a basic understanding of the relevant scientific principles. Harvard’s requirements should equip students to engage deeply in these debates, evaluate scientific claims, and understand the potential and limits of scientific knowledge. Although universal requirements aim to include enough STEM in the curriculum of all students to fulfill these goals, they are not mutually exclusive.
Furthermore, many students find ways to avoid developing the skills these requirements are intended to develop. Astronomy 2: Celestial Navigation is a “classic QRD fulfillment option” according to a recent review in Q Guide. Similarly, Engineering Science 139: Innovation in Science and Engineering, which focuses on teaching entrepreneurs about activities such as company pitches to investors, allows students to meet distribution requirements while avoiding core competencies or basic STEM skills.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with students taking courses on the soft side of STEM if they are interested. But classes that focus on shipping or business development seem unlikely to meet the intended goals of these needs.
Aside from the various separate requirements, STEM majors at Harvard often include ethics and social sciences in their courses – apparently in response to the many dirty examples of technologists who ignore them. the ethical standards of their work. For example, the Computer Science concentrators have a Computation and Global requirement, as well as the Embedded EthiCS program, which integrates ethics directly into technical studies. But many non-STEM students have little connection to STEM concentration needs, depriving them of a deep understanding of how technology intersects with law, policy and social welfare.
And while admission to medical school and engineering admissions often require exposure, conversation is rarely the status quo of professional paths in the humanities and social sciences. For example, pre-law students tend to focus on a specific topic that should stand out during the law school admissions process, which is often facilitated by different classes such as History and Literature or Social Studies, which requiring students to explain specific topics of study.
The consequences of this blindness were clearly visible during the congressional hearing with Zuckerberg in 2018. What was intended to be a serious examination of Facebook’s behavior turned into a metaphor for how many lawmakers how ill-prepared they were to deal with pressing technological problems.
When senators struggle to understand the basics of how Facebook works, it’s not just a shame — it’s a warning sign. We often worry about technologists like Zuckerberg running ethics and law without proper guidance. But the fact that many policymakers lack the technical understanding needed to hold these technologists accountable is an equally pressing issue.
As we face a future dominated by AI, climate change, cybersecurity, bioengineering, and more, the ability of non-techies to understand and critically evaluate new technologies and emerging ones are important. It’s time for a balanced approach to education – one that equips all students, regardless of their field, with the skills needed to navigate science and society in today’s world.
Charlotte R. Rediker ’26, editor of the Crimson Editorial, is a Social Studies major at Lowell House.
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