MIT equips students with the tools to advance science and engineering - but a new class aims to ensure they also develop their own values and learn how to navigate conflicting viewpoints.
Offered as a pilot this past spring, the multidisciplinary class 21.01 (Compass Course: Love, Death, and Taxes: How to Think - and Talk to Others - About Being Human), invites students to wrestle with difficult questions like:
- What do we value (and why)?
- What do we know (and how do we know it)?
- What do we owe to each other (and what should we do about it)?
The class is part of the Compass Initiative , which is led by faculty from across the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS).
Lily L. Tsai, Ford Professor of Political Science and lead faculty for Compass, says the new course is meant to help students use the humanities and social sciences as their guide to thinking about the kind of humans they want to be and what kind of society they want to help create.
"At MIT, we're some of the people who are creating the technologies that are accelerating change and leading to more unpredictability in the world. We have a special responsibility to envision and reimagine a moral and civic education that enables people to navigate it," says Tsai.
The course is the result of a multi-year collaboration involving over 30 faculty from 19 departments, ranging from Philosophy and Literature to Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, all led by a core team of 14 faculty from SHASS and a student advisory board.
During its initial run in the spring, Compass followed an arc that began with students investigating questions of value. Early in the semester, students explored what makes a genius, using Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9" as a case study, accompanied by lectures from Emily Richmond Pollock, associate professor of music, and a podcast conversation with Larry Guth, professor of mathematics, and David Kaiser, professor of physics and science, technology, and society.
Students then grappled with the concept of a merit-based society by digging into the example of the imperial Chinese civil service exam, guided by professor of history Tristan Brown. Next, they questioned what humans really know to be true by examining the universality of language through lectures by professor of linguistics Adam Albright, and the philosophy of truth and knowledge through lectures by professor of philosophy Alex Byrne.
The semester ended with challenging debates about what humans owe one another, including a class designed by Nobel laureate and professor of economics Esther Duflo on taxation and climate burdens.
More than anything, Tsai says, she hopes that Compass prepares students to navigate dorm hallways, the family Thanksgiving table, or future labs or boardroom tables, and learn how to express opinions and actively listen to others with whom they may disagree - all without canceling one another.
The class takes a "flipped classroom" approach: Students watch recorded lectures at home and come to class prepared for discussion and debate. Each section is co-taught by two faculty members, combining disciplines and perspectives.
Second-year mechanical engineering major Kayode Dada signed up because it fulfilled a communications-intensive requirement and offered cross-departmental exposure. But Compass ultimately became more than that to him. "College isn't just about learning science stuff - it's also about how we grow as people," he says. Dada was assigned to a section co-taught by Tsai and professor of literature Arthur Bahr.
Forming a social contract
In the first week, students draft a Rousseau-inspired social compact and learn firsthand how to build a classroom community. "We knew these were deep topics," Dada says. "To get the most out of the class, we had to open up, respect each other, and keep conversations confidential."
One early exercise was especially impactful. After watching lectures by Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies Sally Haslanger on value, students were asked to draw a map representing their values, with arrows pointing from ones that were more instrumental to ones that were fundamental.
At first, Dada felt stuck. Growing up in Kentucky, the son of a Nigerian immigrant who had dreamed of attending MIT himself, Dada had focused for years on gaining admission to the Institute. "I thought getting into MIT would make me feel fulfilled," he admits. "But once I got here, I realized the work alone wasn't enough."
The values exercise helped him reorient. He identified practicing Christianity, hard work, helping others, and contributing to society as central to his belief system. The exercise influenced Dada, leading him to choose to volunteer at a robotics camp for kids in Louisville to share his MIT education with others.
Who governs science?
Later in the semester, Dada was animatedly representing a figure whose views contradicted his own: James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize winner who co-discovered DNA's structure - and is also a controversial figure.
That week, each student had been assigned a persona from a 1976 Cambridge City Council hearing debating recombinant DNA research. The class, designed by Associate Professor Robin Scheffler, was investigating the question: Who governs science - scientists, the government, those who fund research, or the public?
They revisited a real-life debate around recombinant DNA research and the dangers for biological weapons development and other threats to the public that citizens of that time believed it posed when carried out in MIT and Harvard University labs. Pioneered in the 1970s, the technique involved the splicing of genes related to the E. coli bacterium. In the Compass classroom, students argued different sides from their personas: banning the research, moving labs outside city limits, or proceeding without government interference.
Dada notes how faculty intentionally seeded conflicting viewpoints. "It taught me how to negotiate with someone who has different values and come to a resolution that respects everyone involved," he says. "That's something I want to keep exploring."
When Dada closed his presentation with frantically-Googled sentimental music piped unexpectedly from his phone, his classmates laughed in appreciation. The atmosphere was more intimate than academic - an ethos Tsai hoped to cultivate. "They really built intellectual relationships based on trust," she says. "There was a lot of laughter. They took joy in disagreeing and debating."
Changing opinions
First-year student-athlete Shannon Cordle, who is majoring in mechanical engineering, didn't know what to expect from Compass. Since it was new, there were no student reviews. What stood out to her was the grading system: 15 percent of the final grade is based on a rubric each student created for themselves.
Cordle's goal was to become more comfortable expressing an opinion - even before she's fully formed it. "It's easy to stay quiet when you're unsure," she says. "Compass helped me practice speaking up and being willing to be wrong, because that's how you learn."
One week, the class debated whether a meritocracy creates a just society - an especially relevant topic at MIT, given its famously selective admissions process.
Students were able to pick their stance beforehand, and then invited to change it as they gained more perspectives during the debate.
"This helps students grasp not only the flaws in another viewpoint, but also how to strengthen their arguments," Tsai says.
Cordle, who hopes to go into prosthetics, views her future field as representing the perfect balance between creativity and ethics. "The humanities challenge how we view our fields as scientists and engineers," she says.
A compass helps travelers find their way - but it's most useful when they need to reorient and change direction. In that spirit, Compass prepares students not just to ask big questions, but to keep asking - and keep adapting - as their lives and careers evolve.
"Bringing these unexpected class elements together with students and faculty generated magical alchemy - a kind of transformation that we didn't even know we could create," Tsai says.
In addition to the class, the MIT Compass Podcast engages in these fundamental questions with guests from across the MIT schools of Science and Engineering. There are also plans to adapt the residential version of this class for online learners on MITx.
In addition to philanthropic support from MIT Corporation life member emeritus Ray Stata '57, the initiative is supported by the Office of the Vice Chancellor and the MIT Human Insight Collaborative 's SHASS Education Innovation Fund, which promotes new, transformative educational approaches in SHASS fields.
