Students say one further draw of the department is the chance to study economics in an area in which it is booming.

Twenty students are concentrating jointly in economics and EAS and "are attracted to East Asia's economic prowess," as one student says.

Requirements

But not all is rosy in East Asian Studies. Students say the requirements are relatively stiff.

Three years of tutorial and two or three years of an East Asian language require a significant percentage of a student's courseload.

"Many people are daunted by the language requirement and tutorial," one student says. "They are very rigorous."

Students say the language program is very solid.

"I have more praise for the language program than anything else," Freeman says.

The tutorial program, however, is significantly more controversial, particularly the all-encompassing sophomore tutorial.

According to Leo Lee, the purpose of sophomore tutorial is to give concentrators "a broad background in East Asia."

But students say it is challenging to establish a "broad background" for so vast a region, and some say they don't think the department meets this task very well.

"Sophomore tutorial is too scattered," Hui says. "They would jump from one country to the next and pick out only certain moments in time."

Others agree that the bulk of the material covered in tutorial is overwhelming for students.

But because so few students have the necessary background in East Asian Studies, many concentrators contend that the sophomore tutorial must necessarily be intense.

"The department finds it necessary to introduce people to the basic historiography of the whole area," says Megumi Harade '96. "[It's an] introduction to a subject people are not familiar with."