What was the weirdest college course you've taken?
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“Myth, Science, and Philosophy in Ancient Greece”
It was actually a pretty cool course.
I’m only a sophomore, so I haven’t had too many opportunities to take any strange classes yet. I did, however, have to take a class for J-term (a single class semester that encompasses the month of january at my school) that could be called wierd. FRS 140: Perspectives on water. Yes, for the entire month of January, 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, I had to learn about and write papers on water. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds.
I haven’t taken any ‘weird’ courses when enrolled. The least common for the student body would be a photography class I took and that’s not really weird at all.
Education Through Music
Teachers singing and dancing with one another.
Education Through Music is the study of artful teaching and the process of learning through song and play. ETM activities build the imaging system and symbolization process through the synergy of language, song, movement, and interactive play. Thereby, laying the foundation for the building of intelligence.
A bunch of teachers singing Skip to My Lou, and London Bridge whilst dancing with one another (forming a bridge and having the under teachers go under), for instance. Interesting.
@jmah for a semester? what were the assignments?
I took an Environmental Ethics class that was taught by an extremely right-wing teacher. It was quite odd.
These are just a few of the usual courses my university offers:
SIMPSONOLOGY: A STUDY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS ADDRESSED ON THE SIMPSONS
ZOMBIES IN FICTION AND FILM
PHYSICS FOR FUTURE PRESIDENTS
FLOWERS TO SAFTEY PINS: THE BIRTH OF PUNK ROCK
CHEMISTRY OF WINE AND BEER
(Sorry they’re all caps. I copied and pasted from the registrar’s website)
Personally, I would say “The Science of Love” but that only one unit in a larger course.
Or the entire semester I sent learning about the literary works of Torrente Ballester. We started with a book about spies in the cold war, and one spy who could turn into anyone he wanted (yes, really), and then several characters turned out to be robots in the end.
Human Sexuality. This was in 1971 or 1972, a time of different sexual knowledge and accepted mores.
The class was mostly female—a plus
I am a male—a plus
The women talked about sex and what they liked and one session, how they liked being romanced or seduced.—another plus.
Downside—somehow I got a B
I was in a class about the apocalypse for a day, other than that pretty regular classes for me.
History of rock N Roll.
Easiest class ever
Glassblowing. Man oh man…it was really cool…I’mean HOT!
I took a class called Human Experience. We ate a grape collectively, slowly, methodically and then had to journal and share our experience with the rest of class. One great part though was having dinner with Tibetan monks. Can’t beat that.
Mysteries of the Earth. We learned about different conspiracy theories, it was an awesome class. Lochness, Area 51, the idea that alien’s are responsible for the pyramids, crop circles and so forth, the Bermuda triangle and Stonehenge, and many others.
…reading alot of this stuff is starting to make me think college is a waste of time :-/
Preferance to critical thinking. Turned out to be a class in Satire .
There was a required class in my art major. I can’t remember it’s name we all called it Art Theory which was and approximation of what the course catalog described it as. But we got a new professor that year and she wasn’t particularly interested in teaching theory. She just wanted to make damn sure that we all knew that sex and gender were constructs. She did this by showing us Robert Maplethorpe photos and screening Crash (not that one, the other one) and remarking on how much a neck looked like a penis when photographed in the right way.
None of this really said anything about her thesis regarding gender and we mostly just kept are heads down and had an amazing excuse when we got to the advanced Art Theory class and our prof (the amazing Carmine Iannaccone) found that none of us had learned anything that was actually supposed to be on the curriculum for his prerequisite. But he handled that like a pro.
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I also had a terrible world literature prof who I stopped listening to when he insisted Edgar Allen Poe was British. He’d look at us with idioticly happy eyes and ask us painfully easy questions and remind us to “always bring with you the secular Bible” (our course reader). That wasn’t really a odd class though, just really bad. I wrote my best bullshit in that class.
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in contrast my coolest classes were:
“Women’s Spaces: Harems Hussies & Housewives”. The teacher was the most bad ass down to earth feminist and her class was absolutely fascinating. I regularly cite things I learned in that class answering questions here. She had actually wanted the class to be “Harems, Hussies & Housewives: Women’s Spaces” but the administration thought that was going to far.
“the Origins of Humanity” this was recommended to me by my roommate and it absolutely fascinated me. The teacher was wildly entertaining and I wouldn’t be surprised if I set the curve in that class (not something I’d claim for any of my other college classes). I took another Anthropology class later because of this, but sadly though the content was pretty good the prof was miserable.
I took a semester of transsexual animal husbandry.
what? it was a community college.
@Blondesjon So, how has that experience benefited you in the real world? ~
When I returned to school last year, someone in my department enrolled me in classes. One class was Traditions of Hunting, which sounds way more interesting than it was. I did learn a lot in the history portion, but really the class was a hunting love-fest. All the speakers were pro-gun and avid hunters, all except the poor guy from the Humane Society. He did a great job and even mentioned how the HS basically supports ethical hunting, yet he was skewered for weeks after (because no one actually listened to him but me).
Anyway, I got a D in it, mainly because all but one of the non-hunting events were canceled and I needed 2 events to write papers on.
Women, Nietzsche and Feminism. I’m still not quite sure I understand how all those fit together.
The weirdest college class I have taken was probably sex, love, and realationships. The class may have been a pretty good class to have taken however the teacher is what made it strange. The guy was in his late thirtys early fourtys and would come into class with winter boots on in the middle of summer. His shirt half unbuttoned. So it was a little difficult for most of us to even speak in that class when looking at him.
Another class that I have taken was science and paranormal. You ever want to hear about ufo’s, the locknest moster, and big foot this was defenatly the class to take.
On a side note though. I think the best class I ever took was existentialism. That was an eye opener class.
Marriage and Family… It turned out to be a lesbian trying to convince the class that she and her other lesbain were just a normal family.
@La_chica_gomela – My major was Wildlife and Fisheries Resources, the department was basically natural resources (covered Forestry, wildlife management, Parks and Rec, etc.).
@Blondesjon Yes, but can you see Russia from where you live?
@UScitizen – no one needs to be convinced of that, they are a normal family
Her other lesbian? She has a lesbian? Where does one get a lesbian? Is there are boutique somewhere?
@tinyfaery lol – I thought there was just one other lesbian and it was jmah on fluther…maybe we should ask her if her partner is a college professor
Math. Twas weird cos I was going for English/Creative Writing.
The only people who need math in real life are people who teach it.
@King_of_Sexytown How do you think financial consultants, brokers, accountants, auditors and investment folk do their jobs? I’m pretty sure that the people who have mathy jobs relating to money use math in real life. Further more I think those sorts are particularly skilled at obtaining money for them selves.
@fundevogel Good for them. If I ever get into that I will take a math class.
And on a mostly unrelated sidenote auditors can shove it. It’s one thing if someone is accused of something like fraud or a scam or whatever. Otherwise it’s no one else’s business what people do with their own money.
Auditors watch big companies too, to make sure their isn’t any financial hanky panky going on.
@King_of_Sexytown
There are many types of auditors but they essentially do the same thing: ensure compliance with performance, standards, rules, other procedures and in some cases, accuracy of financial, corporate, governmental and personal statements.
Public companies are audited by Certified Public Accountants under requirement by the SEC. The purpose of this is not just legal compliance, it is also to protect the ultimate owners of the company, the shareholders.
Banks or other lenders may require audits in order to support credit decisions or to make sure that company performance meets the agree-upon covenants in an existing loan document. A bank can not examine the detail behind a company’s financial statements for all of its creditors. In sum, they ask the auditors to confirm the value of assets and liabilities as of a given date and to confirm that the reports of income and expenses are stated reasonably.
Other types of audits would be audits by tax authorities, OSHA audits (which protect employees), performance audits among others.
I have never been an auditor, working for corporations all of my life and when the auditors visit they can be a real pain, but they are there at the instruction of our Board of Directors and must be viewed as a necessary evil.
@MissAnthrope: Ah, well in that case “History of Hunting” doesn’t seem so far fetched!
“Literature of the Self” was taught by this little Chinese man who would start writing in characters on the board and become incomprehensible when making important points. The literature wasn’t so bad, the teacher just was ridiculious.
@MissAnthrope of course not – you’re a great liver..we were just being sarcastic
I took a design class in 1971 at SIU under Buckmeinster Fuller. We built a geodesic dome for college students freaking out on acid to hand around in. It was wild. And fun. He was so cool and well, we were hippies.
I haven’t seen any odd courses at WCU yet, however, I did read about “Maple Syrup” at Alfred University in NY. Not gonna lie, I’d transfer if we get snacks if we take the course.
There was a death and dying class taught by the school councilor….and his wife
I took two different classes that I think fit that description. They really aren’t unique, from the name anyway, but I think they fit for other reasons. The first was the Psychology of Sex. I was told to take it by my adviser when I transferred, but I got a kick out of it because the reason for taking it that I was told was that it “was fun,” and “people seem to enjoy it.”
While at Wright State University I took a class on mythology. That was fun because our professor was this elegant women of at least 60 years old. She always taught class dressed very elegantly, with her hair in a bun and wearing pearls. I couldn’t watch her teach without laughing, especially when she talked of Zeus being rather “amorous” and other XXX rated activities.
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