[00:02.39]Top 10 Odd College Courses
[00:05.03]College courses aren't all Economics and The History of Europe.
[00:10.21]A trend among many colleges and universities is to offer courses
[00:14.35]that are slightly off the beaten track.
[00:16.62]Many of these courses draw their themes from pop culture or sports,
[00:20.57]or they may be the brainchildren of professors
[00:23.67]who want to share their passion with students.
[00:25.82]They may be no less serious than traditional courses,
[00:29.31]but they certainly cover new academic ground.
[00:32.42]Students take these offbeat courses for a variety of reasons—
[00:36.54]hoping for an easy A, to try something fun,
[00:39.96]or to explore a new interest.
[00:42.37]Underwater Basket Weaving may be an urban legend,
[00:45.62]but these ten unusual courses are for real:
[00:48.81]1) You can boldly go where no other philosophy student
[00:54.53]has gone before in Georgetown University's
[00:57.60]“Philosophy and Star Trek” course,
[01:00.34]where students discuss the nature of time travel,
[01:02.51]the ability of computers to think and feel,
[01:05.50]and other philosophical dilemmas
[01:08.15]facing the crew of the Starship Enterprise.
[01:10.08]2) Discover how Brick really felt
[01:14.11]when Opal left him for his neighbor's best friend's sister
[01:16.75]in the University of Wisconsin's course entitled
[01:19.97]“Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles”.
[01:23.82]Students analyze the plots, themes,
[01:26.91]and characters of daytime soaps
[01:28.85]and discuss their impact on modern life.
[01:31.59]3) If you've been longing to research how hot dogs,
[01:35.51]theme parks, and the five-day workweek have impacted
[01:39.26]American leisure culture, check out
[01:41.79]the University of Iowa course “The American Vacation”.
[01:45.02]This course pays particular attention to
[01:47.53]how American families' varying backgrounds
[01:50.70]shape their vacation experiences.
[01:53.15]4) Bowdoin College students can delve into
[01:55.80] “The Horror Film in Context” in the school's English Department.
[02:00.03]Students read Freud and Poe and watch Hitchcock and Craven,
[02:03.72]all while discussing the horror genre's treatment of gender,
[02:07.02]class, and family.
[02:08.75]5) At Williams College, students can learn more about those
[02:14.33]in the cement shoe industry by enrolling in
[02:16.88]“Comparative History of Organized Crime”,
[02:19.79]which compares the work of goodfellas from the United States,
[02:23.02]Italy, Japan, and Russia.
[02:25.42]6) If you've got a romantic urge for adventure,
[02:29.81]check out Barnard College's course on “The Road Movie”,
[02:33.50]which studies Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise,
[02:36.58]while also discussing the genre's literary precursors,
[02:39.92]like On the Road and The Odyssey.
[02:42.37]7)If hitting the road doesn't satisfy your rebellious streak,
[02:47.41]sign up for Brown University's course on “American Degenerates”,
[02:51.65]in which students discuss how early British-American writers
[02:55.81]embraced the grotesque, monstrous,
[02:58.22]“not our kind” status bestowed on them by the mother country
[03:02.19]and reflected their zeal for cultural and physical degeneracy
[03:06.48]in their literature.
[03:07.94]8) Those artsy types at the Rhode Island School of Design
[03:11.99]can put down their paintbrushes
[03:14.11]and take “The Art of Sin and the Sin of Art”
[03:17.48]which contemplates the relationship between sin and the art world.
[03:21.10]The course catalog invites you to
[03:23.67]“lust with the saints and burn with the sinners”.
[03:26.92]9) If talking about death several times a week
[03:30.75]in class sounds like a good time to you,
[03:33.16]try Purdue University's “Death and the Nineteenth Century” course.
[03:37.92]Every poem and novel in the course
[03:40.32]deals with the 19th-century conception
[03:42.99]of mortality and the world beyond.
[03:45.40]10) At Centre College in Danville, Kentucky,
[03:49.87]students can take “Art of Walking”,
[03:52.59]in which students not only read literature
[03:55.45]by noted perambulators like Kant and Nietzsche,
[03:58.21]but go for neighborhood strolls with their professor and his dog.
[04:02.02]Most college programs offer interesting courses
[04:05.05]to introduce you to new and fascinating subject matters.
[04:08.30]Take advantage of the many possibilities offered to you
[04:11.95]by sitting down with your advisor to
[04:14.85]talk about course options and then really thinking
[04:17.71]about the courses you choose to take. |