Unfolding the academic year

Victoria Zambrano ’27 (clockwise from bottom left), JaKayla C. Harris ’27, Ida Chen ’27, and Kodi Kim ’27 working together during “Introductory Electromagnetism Physics.”

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

Campus & Community
Unfolding the academic year

Nikki Rojas

Harvard Staff Writer

September 12, 2024 4 min read

Students sample classes across campus, offering them a taste of what lies ahead

Marking the start of the fall semester, thousands of students set off for their first class last week.

“I was immediately amazed to see the diversity of students coming from many different U.S. territories and countries,” Amber Henry, assistant professor in African and African American Studies, said. “I’m excited to have people with so much experience in countries outside of the United States in the class, bringing that richness of experience as we’re thinking about what travel and tourism might look like, and its alternatives, both in places in the Americas and also some of continental Africa.”

Henry is teaching “The Politics of Paradise: Tourism in Latin America & the Caribbean,” a lecture course in the Barker Center that discusses how different experiences of power are tied to tourism, the notion of paradise, and how the concept of paradise has been mobilized in search of the “ideal place.” For the first day, Henry’s students were asked to bring an item that presents the most generic tourist representation of a place.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to think about what types of experiences people are invited to have when they visit a place as a tourist location, and how those experiences might diverge from a kind of deeper, more intimate history that might be gleaned from someone who has a longer experience living there,” she said.

Across campus, students in Louis Deslauriers’ “Introductory Electromagnetism Physics” class were treated to dynamic physics experiments. “You always get lots of clapping,” joked Deslauriers, director of Science Teaching and Learning in FAS and senior preceptor in physics, about the flashy demonstrations which deal with electricity and magnetism.

The core course for physics concentrators largely welcomes first-years and sophomores and covers several topics, including electric currents, Maxwell’s equations, magnetic fields in materials, and some notions in kinetic theory. The goal, Deslauriers notes, is to master this introductory knowledge.

“I make them a promise, that by the end of the course, they’re going to feel powerful,” he said. “By powerful, I mean that when you objectively have a better understanding of the world around you, there’s a power that comes from that.”

Senior preceptor in physics Louis Deslauriers offers students demonstrations during “Introductory Electromagnetism Physics.”

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

A student works on an iPad during a physics class taught in the Science Center Hall A.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

Spencer Lee-Lenfield, postdoc and incoming assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Literature (left), teaches “Exploring Translation Studies: History, Theories, the State of the Art.”

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Lee-Lenfield gathers with students in a Barker Center classroom.

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Graduate student Claire Koeppen.

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Graduate student Camellia Pham.

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Graduate student Yam Traiber.

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A student takes notes during class.

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Graduate student Luis S. Pabón Rico.

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Jessie Cox teaches “Music to Re-imagine the World: From Afrofuturism to Experimental Music across Planet Earth.”

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A detail of the chalkboard in the Music Building.

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Gabriela Vasquez Rosado ’26.

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Amber Henry, assistant professor in the Department of African and African American Studies, teaches “The Politics of Paradise: Tourism in Latin America & the Caribbean.”

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

Ayah Khan ’25 (left) and Adrian Munoz Krans ’25 laugh during class in the Barker Center.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

Joshua Greene, professor in the Department of Psychology, teaches “Free Will, Responsibility, and Law” in William James Hall.

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Andrew Danielson, assistant professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, (standing) teaches “First Civilizations: History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East.

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Danielson’s class is held in the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

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A slide displays “Ancient Records” during the class presentation.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer