Cross-registered classes can now be petitioned for HASS-A credit
Students may now petition art courses taken at Harvard or Wellesley to count for the HASS-A requirement.
Previously, subjects taken via cross registration could only be counted as HASS electives, which fulfill the 8 subject HASS requirement but do not fulfill the HASS distribution component.
The change was enacted due to a lack of traditional art courses offered for-credit at MIT. While the SAA (Student Arts Association) offers ceramics, drawing, painting, and photography classes held at the student center, they are not for-credit and require payment to enroll.
Last spring the music department added 21M.601 (Drawing For Designers), an art studio course that inspired the creation of murals underneath E17 and building 66, known as the Borderline Project.
“On the first day, the teacher asked the students why were we here,” Julia Rue ’18 said in an interview with the DSL. “And a lot of them had really similar answers. It was basically, ‘I used to do art in high school, and I want to continue it here now at MIT, but I didn’t really have the chance,’” she said.
Update 10/11/2017: This article previously stated petition classes at Mass Art to count as HASS-A classes. This is not the case. Students with questions about HASS petitions can email the Office of the HASS Requirement at hassreq@mit.edu.