YCC pushes for non-English courses to fulfill writing requirement
A new policy proposal aims to make Yale’s writing requirement more inclusive, recognizing academic writing in multiple languages as equally valuable.

Ellie Park, Multimedia Managing Editor
In October, the YCC passed a policy proposal that would allow non-English writing courses to fulfill the writing distributional requirement.
According to Yale’s course catalog, characteristics of courses that fulfill the writing requirement must include “writing to discover ideas, learning from model essays, detailed feedback, and reviewing writing in small groups.” However, all of the courses that meet the writing requirement are taught in English. The proposal, sponsored by Speaker of the Senate Emily Hettinger ’26, hopes to bring diversity to the requirement and make it more accessible to multilingual students.
Hettinger says that she was “shocked” to learn that writing courses not taught in English couldn’t fulfill the requirement.
“I think that scholarship should be respected in every language it comes in,” Hettinger said. “Yale’s rationale for the writing distributional requirement is not specific to the English language, and by not giving non-English courses this credit, Yale is implicitly implying that nuanced arguments and explorations of intellectual thought cannot be done in languages other than English.”
Hettinger believes that if the proposal were approved by administration this semester, it would allow non-native English speakers to develop their academic writing in their preferred language, affirming their interests and cultural backgrounds.
Branford senator Owen Setiawan ’27 co-sponsored the proposal. Setiawan, in conjunction with Hetttinger, hopes that the policy can also broaden students’ ability to reach their distributional requirements, an effort pushed by other recently proposed YCC policies such as the expansion of Credit/D/Fail and the reduction of graduation credit requirements.
“When Emily brought it to the Academic Policy Team, I immediately became interested in the proposal,” Setiawan said. “The current policy is limiting a student’s abilities and, in a sense, discounts the writing done in language courses.”
An example provided in the proposal of a course that could fulfill the requirement was Spanish 244, “Writing in Spanish.” The course is listed as an “intensive instruction and practice in writing” taught to develop students’ critical thinking, analysis of literature, and nonfiction writing, meeting Yale’s writing course characteristic requirement of “writing to discover ideas” and “learning from model essays.”
Joseph Elsayyid ’26, another co-sponsor of this proposal, says that the expansion of the writing requirement into non-English courses is an imperative action to further students’ potential and increase their job prospects.
He believes that regardless of whether students work with writings written in languages such as English, Spanish, French or more, they will likely garner similar core abilities rooted in expression, creativity, and comprehension.
“Many Yale graduates will go on to careers in an increasingly interconnected global economy where the ability to write persuasively in multiple languages is invaluable,” Elsayyid said. “By recognizing rigorous writing courses in other languages as fulfilling our distribution requirement, we give students the flexibility to seek their own self-styled preparation for the real world.”
Yale College students need 36 credits to graduate.