My son is a second year student and just registered for spring classes. We are a family of history buffs, and he's a history major, but his schedule hurt. 20th Century China; Roman Law Order and Crime; War and Violence in Early America; and Issues of Life and Death. He needs another hour or two class — I suggested looking for something like making balloon animals for preschoolers or yoga 102. Something fun!!
What's your favorite (or most frightening) class your kid has taken?
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Context...my son had taken 5 or 6 engineering classes (can't remember) junior year fall semester and had the best semester of his college career. He was looking for something completely different in the Spring....and he got it with "Magical Mushrooms and Mischevious Molds". This is a well well known class on campus. Not exactly history Iowamom, but it sounds interesting.
fenwaysouth posted:"Magical Mushrooms and Mischevious Molds".
Why do I suspect that is harder than it sounds???
I took Physical Astronomy in college. It filled a science requirement. My Dad thought I was taking an Astrology class!! I also took canoeing for a gym requirement and I have to say, was the most fun of any class, ever!! Although, we canoed on the Mad River, which was far from mad and we had to carry our canoes when it was too shallow. But, memorable!!
Majoring in Econ/Quantitative Analytics during baseball season I always tried to take a course from the unofficial athletic department’s recommended easy courses list. It was a list passed around from team to team. The list had courses like Geology 101 we called Rocks For Jocks and Religion 101 we called Praying For A’s.
One semester I took an Urban Studies course from the easy list. I had a visiting professor who wasn’t aware the course was on the easy list. The course was supposed to have only a multiple choice midterm and final.
I walked into the midterm. It was all essay. My first thought was, “I’m bleep’ed! I BS’ed my way to the only C I got in college. It’s hard to get a half semester behind in anything and catch up.
Both kids were STEM majors (one science, one math). They had a lot of hard courses. One had labs. The conversation was more of a quantitative, how hard will this semester be? Conversation about labs were more about interfering with softball schedule than anything else.
RJM posted:The course was supposed to have only a multiple choice midterm and final.
Worst class I took was American government. Grade was a 50 point multiple choice midterm, 50 point multiple choice final. Does anyone remember what right is guaranteed in the second paragraph of the third amendment of the Constitution? I didn't.
Wife took Pornography & Feminism as a May Term class.
So that happened....
Typically, I would stay for winter session (3.5 week class) before the Spring session began and the Spring tennis season started for me. I'd go to class for few hours, workout or do indoor tennis drills with my coach then go back and study then go out and have some fun. Here were my filler courses:
Sophomore Year - Human Sexuality which included class interviews with prostitutes, priests, transsexuals, etc..
Junior Year - Investments. This was not a blow off course and I don't recommend it if you want to have fun
Senior Year - Economic Geography. Awesome class.
One standout class from my time in Berkeley was a class I took in 1989 called AIDS and Public Policy. Analyzing public health policy in the Bay Area in real time during an era in which HIV/AIDS was a death sentence and spreading quickly. Changed the way I thought about government and problem-solving in general. Earnestly hope each of my kids (and yours as well) find that one class that changes the way they think.
I thought, as a freshman at UCSB, that it would be a great idea to go ahead and get Human Anatomy out of the way. I had always been good at the biological sciences right? The class was a giant lab that contained two human, and several rabbit, cadavers. The class grade was based on one test at the end of the course where you were handed a page with blanks numbered from 1-400 and you were to write in those blanks what the corresponding numbered T-pin stuck in various places on these cadavers identified. To this day I'm still impressed that I got over 230 correct 
.
My son Majored in Chemistry at his D3. He took all the hard classes every fall and all electives and "easy coarses" in the spring.
No Organic Chemistry or Physical Chemistry and Baseball in the same semester.
