For every semester I’ve been here at Brandeis, at least one of my classes has had a recitation block. For me, all of my recitations have been for economics classes, but other programs have them too. Attendance at these recitations is mandatory. The problem is the time that these recitations are scheduled for. 

These recitations are scheduled for the evening. The one I currently have to attend happens on Tuesdays from 6:30 to 8:20 p.m. This early evening time period is a problem: it’s when almost every club on campus meets. I recently became a member of the Brandeis Democrats. However, because of the time slot for my recitation, I cannot make some of the meetings and must show up late to others. This is not just a matter of bad luck. Recitations are scheduled in the evening from Monday to Thursday. Three out of those four days, I am at a weekly or bi-weekly meeting of some club on campus. Several other clubs that I’ve been interested in joining I couldn’t because I couldn’t attend the meetings because there was a recitation at the same time. Recitations put students in a difficult position. They must choose between extracurricular activities they enjoy, some of which they may have been part of for years, and their classes. This is a choice that students should not have to make, and one that could be avoided by not scheduling recitations for this time period.

What makes these recitations even more annoying is that, at least for the classes I have taken, we don’t learn anything in these recitations. After all, recitation is exactly what it sounds like: a TA reciting things we already learned in the class. Only once out of all the recitations I’ve been to has the professor themselves even showed up. Most of the time, all we do is look at a slideshow. Classes are already meeting in person for at least three hours a week, plus time spent on homework. That is more than enough time for us to learn all of the necessary material. If we have questions, both the TA and the professor have office hours that we can go to. I have never learned anything new in a recitation. 

Perhaps the best argument professors make in favor of recitations is that they provide students an opportunity to ask questions that they wouldn’t get to ask in class. However, at any of the recitations I’ve been to, that’s simply not been the case. For the intro classes I took last year that had recitations, both sections of the class were combined into one big recitation. In my Intro to Microeconomics class, the recitation was almost 200 people. My other recitations have been smaller, but still the same size or larger than the regular class. This leads to an environment that’s louder and has more distractions than the regular lecture. If students have questions, recitations are not the place to ask them. 

In conclusion, the scheduling of recitations at Brandeis presents a significant challenge for students, particularly when it comes to balancing academic responsibilities with extracurricular commitments. The timing of these recitations, often overlapping with crucial club meetings and other activities, forces students into an unfair position of choosing between their academic obligations and their personal interests. The large, impersonal nature of some recitations further detracts from their effectiveness as a venue for addressing questions or engaging deeply with the material. Given these concerns, it is clear that a reevaluation of both the scheduling and format of recitations is necessary. Reforming these aspects could significantly enhance students’ overall academic experience, ensuring that their time and efforts are utilized more effectively and that they are able to fully engage in both their studies and their campus life. If recitations occurred in the daytime, when clubs don’t meet and we are all focusing on academics anyway, they would be a mild inconvenience where students hear the same material they heard a few hours earlier for a second or third time. Instead, being in the evenings, they represent a significant burden on students’ school-life balance. The lives of all students would be better if classes did not have mandatory evening recitations.