What Is Harvard Hum 10?

Cal Newport describes Harvard Hum 10 from Pamela Paul's Wall Street Journal article, "The Brutal Harvard Class That Suddenly Everyone Wants to Take." It is a freshman humanities course. Students read a hefty book a week and write regular essays. There is no pass-fail option. Digital devices are banned, and attendance is taken in every lecture.

The course looks like the kind of class that students who struggle to finish books would avoid. At Harvard it is a hit. Paul calls it the surprise hit of Harvard's academic lineup. Applicants write an essay to try to get in. In the most recent semester, over 180 students applied for only 90 slots.

That full class is the clue. A requirement to read a hard book every week, with no devices and no pass-fail option, drew more people than it could seat. Newport treats the rush as a way to resist the most dehumanizing forces from big tech: some students will take the harder reading when a course actually demands it.