How I Fulfilled Tufts’ Distribution Requirements
As a student in the school of Arts and Sciences, I had to take courses in a variety of subjects in order to fulfill distribution requirements. Here are the requirements and the classes I chose to take to complete them:
Humanities
I am majoring in International Literary and Visual Studies, which means that I completed this requirement through my major courses. Some of my favorite literature courses include Black World Literature, Reading German Culture, and 21st Century Latin American Literature.
Arts
I took a class called the Global History of Cinema for this requirement, which is honestly one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at Tufts. We learned about how film evolved across multiple cultures due to cultural and technological shifts. I got to add so many films to my Letterboxd! Creative writing classes also fulfill the arts requirement, and I learned so much about craft from the fiction writing class I took.
Social Sciences
I fulfilled this requirement through a Special Topics in Archaeology course. “Special Topics” classes are taught for only one semester and are such a great opportunity to dive into a specific topic. This specific course focused on local history, and we even got to look at material at the Tufts Archives for our final project. I also took the class Linguistic Approaches to Second Language Learning, where I learned about language-teaching theories. As a language-lover, this class was so much fun!
Natural Sciences
One of the most popular courses for this requirement is called Dinosaurs! (don’t forget the exclamation mark). In this course, we dove deep into the methods that scientists used to study dinosaurs, learning about how they determine everything from a dinosaur’s physicality to their diet. I also took an astronomy course called Concepts of the Cosmos, where I learned so much about the physics of outer space.
Mathematical Sciences
Although I was not excited about having a math requirement, I genuinely enjoyed the math courses I took. My favorite one was symmetry, where we learned about the math behind the 17 different wallpaper groups. Our final project was to create our own wallpaper patterns. The other math course I took was statistics, which I also found interesting. Taking these math courses provided me with a nice break from my writing-heavy literature courses.
Although the many distribution requirements can seem overwhelming, taking these classes helped me explore beyond my comfort zone and find a greater balance between STEM and humanities in my courseload. Most students are also able to use their AP or IB scores, or take Tufts departmental placement exams to fulfill certain requirements before arriving at Tufts.