[madcaptenor]

Feynman writes about having to satisfy a liberal arts requirement in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, so the requirement goes back at least to the late thirties.

[mcguire]

It's been a while since I read it, but I seem to recall his approach to it was what I assume to be the normal MIT student's: take the minimum he could get away with and complain about how useless it was.

I could be misremembering, though, and that was written much later in his life.

[madcaptenor]

You're pretty much right, according to:

- this oral history: http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/5020_2.html (search for "astronomy", which apparently was considered a humanities course!)

- this transcription of the relevant section of Surely You're Joking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Paranoid/Feynman