EXPLAINED | What Is Harvard’s Hum 10, and Why Are Students Queuing Up to Read Difficult Books?

A student can ask a chatbot to summarise a difficult book in seconds. At Harvard, some first-year students are competing for a course that requires them to spend considerably longer with it.

Humanities 10, commonly called Hum 10, received 180 applications for 90 places this autumn, a 40% increase, according to reporting by Pamela Paul in The Wall Street Journal.

The course demands substantial weekly reading and regular writing. Classroom devices are prohibited, attendance is monitored and there is no pass/fail option, the report says.

Its popularity offers an intriguing starting point. Students are voluntarily choosing conditions that make shortcuts harder.

Understanding the appeal requires looking at what those conditions make possible.

WHAT EXACTLY IS HUM 10?

Harvard’s catalogue describes Humanities 10a as a humanities colloquium running from Homer to Joyce. It forms the first part of a two-semester course available only to first-year students.

Students attend lectures, discuss texts in faculty-led seminars and develop their writing. Admission requires an application, enrolment is capped at 90 and auditors are not permitted.

There is also a practical academic incentive. Completing both Humanities 10a and 10b fulfils Harvard College’s writing requirement.

The course, therefore, combines demanding reading with instruction, discussion and credit towards a degree.

That combination matters. Giving someone a pile of difficult books is easy. Building a setting in which they can read, question and write about them is a more substantial educational undertaking.

WHY WOULD STUDENTS WANT SUCH A HEAVY WORKLOAD?

Structure can help people do something they value but repeatedly postpone.

A student might intend to read a long novel, then put it aside when another deadline arrives. A scheduled seminar changes that calculation. Other people will have read the book. A professor will ask questions. An essay will require an argument.

The course creates a reason to keep going when the reading becomes uncomfortable or slow.

Its appeal may also involve access to teachers and a community of students willing to take the work seriously. Selective admission and word-of-mouth can contribute to demand too.

These are possible explanations, rather than proven causes of the application increase.

The important distinction is that difficulty becomes more attractive when students can see its purpose and receive support in meeting it.

WHAT IS “DEEP READING”?

It means sustained engagement with how a text works, rather than simply extracting its main points.

A reader follows an argument, notices changes in tone, examines a surprising word and returns to a passage that complicates an earlier interpretation.

Harvard Library’s guidance on critical reading encourages students to annotate, identify patterns, contextualise material and compare texts. The reader actively questions what is on the page.

Take a simple fictional example: a narrator repeatedly insists that a friend is trustworthy, while describing incidents that suggest otherwise.

A summary might explain that the friend eventually betrays the narrator. Reading the story allows you to examine how the narrator misses the warning signs, whether the reader should believe the account and how the author builds uncertainty.

Those questions require attention to the writing itself.

WHY ISN’T A GOOD SUMMARY ENOUGH?

It depends on the task.

A summary can help someone establish whether a book is relevant, recall an argument or prepare to investigate a subject further. It can be useful.

But when the task is to develop interpretation, accepting a finished explanation can bypass the work being practised.

A student needs opportunities to form a view, find supporting evidence and discover where that view fails. Discussion can expose an overlooked passage. Writing can reveal that an apparently clear idea is difficult to defend.

An efficient account of someone else’s interpretation does not establish that the student can perform those steps independently.

The educational question is therefore what students are expected to learn by completing the assignment.

IS THIS A REBELLION AGAINST AI?

The evidence supports a narrower conclusion.

Some students in the reporting describe wanting protection from shortcuts and fragmented attention. That is meaningful testimony about their experience.

It cannot establish that AI caused the rise in applications, or that university students generally are rejecting the technology.

Harvard itself is exploring several approaches. Its Derek Bok Center discusses oral examinations, in-person comprehension checks and other assessments that help teachers establish what students understand. It also suggests assignments in which students critique AI output, check its accuracy or document how they used it.

The underlying issue is how a teacher distinguishes a student’s learning from a polished piece of submitted work.

Hum 10 offers one setting for examining that problem. It should not be presented as Harvard’s universal answer.

DO DEVICE BANS RESTORE ATTENTION?

They can remove particular opportunities for distraction during class. That does not demonstrate a permanent improvement in attention.

Nor does choosing a demanding course prove that a student’s concentration was previously damaged.

A classroom rule can create time in which everyone is expected to focus on the same material. Its educational value still depends on what happens during that time.

A lecture must be worth following. Discussion must reward preparation. Students need help when they struggle.

There are accessibility considerations too. Digital tools can enable participation for students who need them. A discussion of classroom technology should distinguish distracting use from necessary support.

The strongest question is how to design conditions that help students engage seriously.

IS THERE AN INDIAN CONNECTION?

Yes, and it goes beyond imagining a Harvard-style reading list in an Indian classroom.

Ashoka University’s foundation curriculum includes Great Books and Introduction to Critical Thinking. Its Great Books description emphasises works from different cultures, periods and languages.

That provides an existing Indian example of reading and interpretation being built into an undergraduate education.

The wider challenge concerns access. Can institutions provide meaningful feedback on writing, manageable discussion groups and enough time for sustained reading?

Language matters as well. Intellectual difficulty should not be confused with unfamiliarity with academic English. Courses can challenge students while helping them develop the language and contextual knowledge needed to participate.

The transferable idea is a supported practice of reading, discussing and revising one’s thinking.

WHAT DOES HUM 10’S POPULARITY ACTUALLY TELL US?

It shows that a demanding course can attract strong interest among a particular group of students.

It does not establish a revival of the humanities across higher education. Ninety places at a highly selective university cannot represent every student’s needs or circumstances.

But it challenges the assumption that students invariably prefer less work.

Some appear willing to accept a substantial workload when the course offers intellectual purpose, close teaching and people with whom to share the effort.

AI makes explanations easier to obtain. Courses such as Hum 10 bring renewed attention to what happens before an explanation becomes convincing: reading the evidence, making an argument and discovering why someone else disagrees.