Courses Outside of Your Major: Your Favorites

[Cachoo]

Was it the subject matter....the professor? Both? Was it intellectually challenging, something offbeat, something athletic, something fun? What courses, outside of your major, have you enjoyed most?

 

[MsZem]

I was a psychology major. I had a great time taking film classes (watching all sorts of classics I wouldn't have seen otherwise) and loved my modern Japanese history course. The instructor was amazing and the subject matter is interesting to me, too.

 

[clairecloutier]

I was an English/history double major. I took quite a few classes outside the major due to core requirements (mostly intro classes). My favorite by far was sociology. I actually didn't like the instructor that much, so it was just the subject matter. Probably my next favorite non-major class was a course on modern South African history (learning about apartheid, Mandela, etc.) That was technically an African-American studies class rather than a history class.

 

[skategal]

I was a Business major and enjoyed my Psychology and Anthropology electives.

I think I am super interested in human behaviour.

In my next life I want to be an Archeologist.

 

[once_upon]

We were discussing career paths yesterday because our daughter in law is finishing a course of study for a second career in nursing.

Most, if not all, through all my classes/courses for my degrees had to do with nursing. Or prerequisites like English, Math courses, etc. I did take an art class which was a prereq too- it was a forced one, the only one offered for remote degree completion.

I said if i had to do it over I would not have been a nurse. He asked what I would have done - I said at that time i felt i had two choices teacher or nurse. Seven years later my sister's world was wide open.

I did take a 10 week class on using all the features of my Amana microwave and spent hundreds of dollars on the specialized dishes for microwave cooking, like bundt cake dishes or browning platters. It was fun to go home and use the class recipes/specialized dishes/cookbooks.

 

[taf2002]

I had a double major in English/Speech, minor in Education. My favorite class outside that was Geology with Botany a close second. Back then girls weren't encouraged to major in STEM but that's really the direction I should have gone. Geology was so interesting, learning about how the continents were formed & about our natural world. We also learned how to identify rocks. At the start of the course we had to buy a bag of rocks from the college bookstore ($2) & by the end of term we had to put names to every rock in the bag. And the Botany final was 100 numbered microscopes with different plants on the slides & you had to identify each one. Those 2 courses were easier A's than anything in my majors.

 

[made_in_canada]

I loved every geography class I took. It was a combination of the geography department having amazing professors and subject matter. I wish I had taken one earlier in my university journey. I might have minored in it or maybe changed my major from psychology. I did love my psychology courses though too.

 

[tony]

Although I started as a combo psych/crim major, I had already switched out of it when I decided to take a special topic soc course: The Sociology of Serial Murder. It was so well-done, fascinating, like watching any Netflix doc completely expanded upon in a quarter-long course. There was also a criminology course taught by one of the retired big-name FBI agents that I didn't get to take because of the timing, but I wish I would've.

 

[gkelly]

I double majored in English and Theatre as an undergrad.

A handful of dance practice classes could count toward the Theatre major, but I took more than that for exercise etc.
Dance was a separate major, which I did not quite achieve (e.g., I didn't do the dance teaching practicum).
So would dance classes count as "outside my major" even though they were offered within the Department of Theatre and Dance?
Especially a class like Anatomy and Kinesiology, in which we learned about bones and muscles and did a lot of massage.

I also took a women's studies course before there was a formal Women's Studies department at my college (in the last 40 years, it still exists but has since changed its name). The course I took was offered as an independent study with an English department professor sponsoring. We broke into small groups for the full semester and each group set our own curriculum. Some of the books we read were novels, but most were more sociological. And then for a final project my group decided that it would be more advantageous to build a table than to write a paper. (We then donated the table to the campus Women's Center.)

 

[bladesofgorey]

I went to art school so there was very little outside of my major that I took that was not art-related. However we did have sociology/philosophy/english requirements. These were all geared toward how they fit in with visual art though for the most part. I guess my favorite was the very first class I had my freshman year, which happened to be the required English comp class. I was having trouble figuring out the floor and room this was in since I was unfamiliar with the campus and buildings. A fellow lost person in the stairwell was trying to figure out the same thing, so we bonded for a few minutes while sorting it out together. Once we found the room I chose a seat next to him -being as I figured he was my new bestie. The professor came into the room, gave a short preamble about how good, observant, creative writing is analogous to the attention to detail we use when drawing, and our first exercise would be to draw with words what we see in front of us. At that prompt my new bestie stood up, walked to a short platform in the middle of the room and quickly stripped naked. We were to "draw" the model with words and me, having never been in the presence of a nude figure model was completely at a loss for them. But this was an excellent class and I "drew" on what I learned from it for years to come.

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

Started as mathematics major, got degree from School of Business in Business Administation (Accounting concentration). Classes I most enjoyed were Intro to Theater and Intro to Music.

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

Sorry double post.

 

[genevieve]

I got a BA in Dance, and at the end of my college life I was one of the last students on a phased-out gen ed system. There were limited classes that would even offer a translation to the old system, as new teachers had no idea what it was. There was a specific gen ed requirement that was not fulfilled by dance choreography classes, but was fulfilled by music composition (which was BS ). It was my final year, I needed that credit, so I signed up for Solfege and Eartraining and Music Composition, despite no prior music classes other than being in choir in HS.

I don't really play any instruments, so I would plunk out these compositions as best I could on a piano and then the teacher would have to play them because I didn't have the ability to do it myself. 99% of the time, I would end up saying "well, that isn't how I imagined it" I felt bad for the other 4 students (who were music majors), but it ended up being really helpful to me in my creative life to have that experience, even if it was more of a protest against the school being dumb.

Completely outside of my major, I really enjoyed history classes - I took 2 African American History classes, and then a 20th Century US History class that had only 4 students and was just an inspiring learning process. Small classes FTW!

 

[Garden Kitty]

My freshman year we were required to take a small writing seminar taught by a variety of professors from the College of Arts and Literature. You got assigned to a class and had no choice on the subject matter since the focus was really on the writing and not the subject matter of the literature. I was originally assigned one on Japanese poetry, but the professor had to cancel for some reason and the replacement professor chose Children's Literature. The professor was wonderful and I've always loved children's literature.

 

[quartz]

I’m totally uneducated but I’ve always wanted to study folklore/fairytales/religion. The school I went to didn’t study or even mention mythology because it’s not biblical. There was no art either - I think I might have had fun with some basic art classes.

 

[clairecloutier]

Completely outside of my major, I really enjoyed history classes - I took 2 African American History classes, and then a 20th Century US History class that had only 4 students and was just an inspiring learning process. Small classes FTW!

I went to a state university, and only once can I recall ever being in a class of 10 kids or less. That was a freshman writing seminar or something.

"Small" classes at our school were 50-60 kids.

 

[vgerdes]

"Cultures & Religions of the Hawaiian Islands." While one of the reasons why the course was so wonderful is obvious (it was on location), I also found the subject fascinating. I remember my professors (there were two -- it was a tag team effort) telling me the final paper I submitted on the course was their favorite because they could tell I had fallen in love with the subject matter and wasn't just there for the month-long Hawaiian vacation, unlike most of my classmates. LOL. What many people may not realize is how culturally diverse Hawaii really is. That class did not bring me to change my major (English lit), but it has stuck with me, and I actually graduated quite a long time ago.

 

[MsZem]

I’m totally uneducated but I’ve always wanted to study folklore/fairytales/religion. The school I went to didn’t study or even mention mythology because it’s not biblical. There was no art either - I think I might have had fun with some basic art classes.

You still can, once the current situation improves - at least, I hope you have some classes available? If so, go for it!

 

[genevieve]

I went to a state university, and only once can I recall ever being in a class of 10 kids or less. That was a freshman writing seminar or something.

"Small" classes at our school were 50-60 kids.

when I first moved to Seattle, I attended a lecture with my friend who was a student at UW. It was in a ginormous hall and she said there were 800 students in that class alone. That broke me. My whole college had around 500 students!

 

[mjb52]

You still can, once the current situation improves - at least, I hope you have some classes available? If so, go for it!

There's online classes now too, and they work better than I would have expected. Might be worth checking out! Of course for the arts it's ideal to be in person, but I've done a bunch of online stuff and it helps just to get motivated and be forced to do something.

 

[taf2002]

"Cultures & Religions of the Hawaiian Islands." While one of the reasons why the course was so wonderful is obvious (it was on location), I also found the subject fascinating. I remember my professors (there were two -- it was a tag team effort) telling me the final paper I submitted on the course was their favorite because they could tell I had fallen in love with the subject matter and wasn't just there for the month-long Hawaiian vacation, unlike most of my classmates. LOL. What many people may not realize is how culturally diverse Hawaii really is. That class did not bring me to change my major (English lit), but it has stuck with me, and I actually graduated quite a long time ago.

I read James Michener's Hawaii ages ago so I was aware of the diversity. The course sounds fascinating.

 

[vgerdes]

I read James Michener's Hawaii ages ago so I was aware of the diversity. The course sounds fascinating.

That book was required reading for the course.