The dominant refrain is that too much reading and writing is being asked of students. It should be noted, on the other hand, that when students were asked how much time they spent studying for their Core courses they responded by saying that they spent about 3 hours a week, about half of the expected time to be spent in studying for a three-hour university course. While I see the value of Core, the amount of work is nearly ridiculous. Too much reading took away some of the interest and concentration in some of the classes I was taking. Another complaint is not about quantity so much as about crowding.
Student voices are loud and clear with respect to all four syllabi.
There is too much material in each Core class. I think I would get a lot more out of the readings if I had more time. The only thing I didn't like was that some of the readings were shortened where I found them interesting and felt cut off. Another very important negative response has to do with student perceptions of the attitudes of their fellow students. Most of them think that their peers have a worse opinion of the Core than they do themselves.