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20 Completely Ridiculous College Courses Being Offered At U.S. Universities
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economc Collapse blog,
Would you like to know what America's young people are actually learning while they are away at college? It isn't pretty. Yes, there are some very highly technical fields where students are being taught some very important skills, but for the most part U.S. college students are learning very little that they will actually use out in the real world when they graduate. Some of the college courses listed below are funny, others are truly bizarre, others are just plain outrageous, but all of them are a waste of money. If we are going to continue to have a system where we insist that our young people invest several years of their lives and tens of thousands of dollars getting a "college education", they might as well be learning some useful skills in the process. This is especially true considering how much student loan debt many of our young people are piling up. Sadly, the truth is that right now college education in the United States is a total joke. I know - I spent eight years in the system. Most college courses are so easy that they could be passed by the family dog, and many of these courses "study" some of the most absurd things imaginable.
Listed below are 20 completely ridiculous college courses being offered at U.S. universities. The description following each course title either comes directly from the official course description or from a news story about the course...
1. "What If Harry Potter Is Real?" (Appalachian State University) - This course will engage students with questions about the very nature of history. Who decides what history is? Who decides how it is used or mis-used? How does this use or misuse affect us? How can the historical imagination inform literature and fantasy? How can fantasy reshape how we look at history? The Harry Potter novels and films are fertile ground for exploring all of these deeper questions. By looking at the actual geography of the novels, real and imagined historical events portrayed in the novels, the reactions of scholars in all the social sciences to the novels, and the world-wide frenzy inspired by them, students will examine issues of race, class, gender, time, place, the uses of space and movement, the role of multiculturalism in history as well as how to read a novel and how to read scholarly essays to get the most out of them.
2. "God, Sex, Chocolate: Desire and the Spiritual Path" (UC San Diego) - Who shapes our desire? Who suffers for it? Do we control our desire or does desire control us? When we yield to desire, do we become more fully ourselves or must we deny it to find an authentic identity beneath? How have religious & philosophical approaches dealt with the problem of desire?
3. "GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender, and Identity" (The University Of Virginia) - In Graduate Arts & Sciences student Christa Romanosky's ongoing ENWR 1510 class, "GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender, and Identity," students analyze how the musician pushes social boundaries with her work. For this introductory course to argumentative essay writing, Romanosky chose the Lady Gaga theme to establish an engaging framework for critical analysis.
4. "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" (The University Of South Carolina) - Lady Gaga may not have much class but now there is a class on her. The University of South Carolina is offering a class called Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame. Mathieu Deflem, the professor teaching the course describes it as aiming to “unravel some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga with respect to her music, videos, fashion, and other artistic endeavours.”
5. "Philosophy And Star Trek" (Georgetown) - Star Trek is very philosophical. What better way, then, to learn philosophy, than to watch Star Trek, read philosophy, and hash it all out in class? That's the plan. This course is basically an introduction to certain topics in metaphysics and epistemology philosophy, centered around major philosophical questions that come up again and again in Star Trek. In conjunction with watching Star Trek, we will read excerpts from the writings of great philosophers, extract key concepts and arguments and then analyze those arguments.
6. "Invented Languages: Klingon and Beyond" (The University Of Texas) - Why would anyone want to learn Klingon? Who really speaks Esperanto, anyway? Could there ever be a language based entirely on musical scales? Using constructed/invented languages as a vehicle, we will try to answer these questions as we discuss current ideas about linguistic theory, especially ideas surrounding the interaction of language and society. For example, what is it about the structure of Klingon that makes it look so "alien"? What was it about early 20th century Europe that spawned so many so-called "universal" languages? Can a language be inherently sexist? We will consider constructed/invented languages from a variety of viewpoints, such as languages created as fictional plot-devices, for philosophical debates, to serve an international function, and languages created for private fun. We won't be learning any one language specifically, but we will be learning about the art, ideas, and goals behind invented languages using diverse sources from literature, the internet, films, video games, and other aspects of popular culture.
7. "The Science Of Superheroes" (UC Irvine) - Have you ever wondered if Superman could really bend steel bars? Would a “gamma ray” accident turn you into the Hulk? What is a “spidey-sense”? And just who did think of all these superheroes and their powers? In this seminar, we discuss the science (or lack of science) behind many of the most famous superheroes. Even more amazing, we will discuss what kind of superheroes might be imagined using our current scientific understanding.
8. "Learning From YouTube" (Pitzer College) - About 35 students meet in a classroom but work mostly online, where they view YouTube content and post their comments. Class lessons also are posted and students are encouraged to post videos. One class member, for instance, posted a 1:36-minute video of himself juggling.
9. "Arguing with Judge Judy" (UC Berkeley) - TV "Judge" shows have become extremely popular in the last 3-5 years. A fascinating aspect of these shows from a rhetorical point of view is the number of arguments made by the litigants that are utterly illogical, or perversions of standard logic, and yet are used over and over again. For example, when asked "Did you hit the plaintiff?" respondents often say, "If I woulda hit him, he'd be dead!" This reply avoids answering "yes" or "no" by presenting a perverted form of the logical strategy called "a fortiori" argument ["from the stronger"] in Latin. The seminar will be concerned with identifying such apparently popular logical fallacies on "Judge Judy" and "The People's Court" and discussing why such strategies are so widespread. It is NOT a course about law or "legal reasoning." Students who are interested in logic, argument, TV, and American popular culture will probably be interested in this course. I emphasize that it is NOT about the application of law or the operations of the court system in general.
10. "Elvis As Anthology" (The University Of Iowa) - The class, “Elvis as Anthology,” focuses on Presley’s relationship to African American history, social change, and aesthetics. It focuses not just on Elvis, but on other artists who inspired him and whom he inspired.
11. "The Feminist Critique Of Christianity" (The University Of Pennsylvania) - An overview of the past decades of feminist scholarship about Christian and post-Christian historians and theologians who offer a feminist perspective on traditional Christian theology and practice. This course is a critical overview of this material, presented with a summary of Christian biblical studies, history and theology, and with a special interest in constructive attempts at creating a spiritual tradition with women's experience at the center.
12. "Zombies In Popular Media" (Columbia College) - This course explores the history, significance, and representation of the zombie as a figure in horror and fantasy texts. Instruction follows an intense schedule, using critical theory and source media (literature, comics, and films) to spur discussion and exploration of the figure's many incarnations. Daily assignments focus on reflection and commentary, while final projects foster thoughtful connections between student disciplines and the figure of the zombie.
13. "Far Side Entomology" (Oregon State) - For the last 20 years, a scientist at Oregon State University has used Gary Larson's cartoons as a teaching tool. The result has been a generation of students learning — and laughing — about insects.
14. "Interrogating Gender: Centuries of Dramatic Cross-Dressing" (Swarthmore) - Do clothes make the man? Or the woman? Do men make better women? Or women better men? Is gender a costume we put on and take off? Are we really all always in drag? Does gender-bending lead to transcendence or chaos? These questions and their ramifications for liminalities of race, nationality and sexuality will be our focus in a course that examines dramatic works from The Bacchae to M. Butterfly.
15. "Oh, Look, a Chicken!" Embracing Distraction as a Way of Knowing (Belmont University) - Students must write papers using their personal research on the five senses. Entsminger reads aloud illustrated books The Simple People and Toby’s Toe to teach lessons about what to value by being alive. Students listen to music while doodling in class. Another project requires students to put themselves in situations where they will be distracted and write a reflection tracking how they got back to their original intent.
16. "The Textual Appeal of Tupac Shakur" (University of Washington) - The UW is not the first college with a class dedicated to Shakur -- classes on the rapper have been offered at the University of California Berkeley and Harvard -- but it is the first to relate Shakur's work to literature.
17. "Cyberporn And Society" (State University of New York at Buffalo) - With classwork like this, who needs to play? Undergraduates taking Cyberporn and Society at the State University of New York at Buffalo survey Internet porn sites.
18. "Sport For The Spectator" (The Ohio State University) - Develop an appreciation of sport as a spectacle, social event, recreational pursuit, business, and entertainment. Develop the ability to identify issues that affect the sport and spectator behavior.
19. "Getting Dressed" (Princeton) - Jenna Weissman Joselit looks over the roomful of freshmen in front of her and asks them to perform a warm-up exercise: Chart the major moments of your lives through clothes. "If you pop open your closet, can you recall your lives?" she posits on the first day of the freshman seminar "Getting Dressed."
20. "How To Watch Television" (Montclair) - This course, open to both broadcasting majors and non-majors, is about analyzing television in the ways and to the extent to which it needs to be understood by its audience. The aim is for students to critically evaluate the role and impact of television in their lives as well as in the life of the culture. The means to achieve this aim is an approach that combines media theory and criticism with media education.
Are you starting to understand why our college graduates can't function effectively when they graduate and go out into the real world?
All of this would be completely hilarious if not for the fact that we have millions of young people going into enormous amounts of debt to pay to go to these colleges.
In America today, college education has become a giant money making scam. We have a system that absolutely throws money at our young people, but we never warn them about the consequences of all of these loans. The following is an excerpt from an email that one reader sent me recently about the student loan industry...
For example, one woman told me that her and her husband sat down and thought of every possible expense they could when they were applying for parent/student loan for their daughter. When the approval came back, they were approved for 7k more than they asked for…how about ****! Of course at 7%, why not! Funny thing is they kept the 7k, because she’s in wealth management and said she could “easily” get more than 7% in the stock market……awesome! I have another example of a younger friend of mine who graduated law school from Vanderbilt with 210k in student loans. I asked if tuition was that much there. She said kind of, but they kept offering more than the actual tuition, so she took it and used it for a better lifestyle. Now 20% of her income goes to pay those loans, and it’s still not enough to touch one dollar of the principal…so all she is doing is paying interest, and building on principal…like a revers amortizing mortgage. To make it worse, she was able to save 25k, so she is going to buy a house somehow. Having explained to her that the best investment in the world is to pay off a high interest loan, she said I’m tired of waiting to have a life.
In a recent article entitled "The Student Loan Delinquency Rate In The United States Has Hit A Brand New Record High" I detailed how nightmarish our student loan debt bubble is becoming. According to the Federal Reserve, the total amount of student loan debt has risen by 275 percent since 2003, and it just continues to soar.
A college education can be a wonderful thing, but right now we have got a system that is deeply, deeply broken.
So what do you think about our system of higher education?
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Saved the best for the last ...
How to watch television? .... epic lol
I'd take that course in a heatbeat
At least these students are prepared to be unemployed and homeless in the wilderness ...
http://www.uas.alaska.edu/arts_sciences/humanities/programs/ods/courses.html
Regards,
Cooter
Actually I would take all the classes. But I'd probably still fail focusing all my time to the last one. But then again, I'd probably fail that one too, due to taking the red pill. Now that thar is a class I'd pass easily!
This courseload should prepare one for a fine career at the ever and endlessly expanding Department of Homeland Security... Who will probably be knocking at my door tonight for having written this.
(Ok... maybe not tonight, but eventually -- what.. 5, maybe 10 years from now, someone will browse my long history of comments and it will be deemed some form of terrorism.)
Can I take that "How to watch television" class PASS/FAIL?
only if you bring the cheesepoops
Theses are all important courses for the jobs of the future.
Waste time, and money on this and we wonder why the economy is in the shape it is.
http://www.dailyjobcuts.com
-
Students pay thousands to study lady gaga and other sh*t?
I would love a course that allows me to spot an honest Jew working on Wall Street because I havent met one yet in my entire life.
the facade of cops is now gone, check out this d-bag asking a 12 year old boy if hes a lawyer;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pSasFQIyH8
The problem with this line of thought is that most high school students are woefully unprepared for a true 4 year academic career in either the math or sciences.
A lot kids waste a couple of semesters or more just taking remedial classes to get up to the university level.
But, students can sit in these classes and actually think they're smart and feel they're accomplishing something.
As long as public schools continue to graduate idiots colleges will continue to provide meaningless feel good courses.
There are a lot of things out there for which there no real proven right way of doing it.
That realisation was hammered down on me when I, who have an engineering degree, took a couple of short courses for acting (just for fun) in different schools and with different teachers: not a single one of them taught the same method as any other (although often they had similarities). In simple terms, Theatre is one of those areas of human knowledge where nobody really knows what good acting is and how to get it consistently.
"Students pay thousands to study lady gaga and other sh*t?"
No...you pay when they default on the bill. Consider this as a 4 year prep course for a lifetime of disability or AFDC payments, also funded by the dwindling supply of remaining taxpayers.
the university in my town offers a bona fide degree in Apathy and Ignorance.
Can that be combined with a minor in Arrogance and Prejudice?
The only problem is that nobody at the university cares or knows about the class.
Or better yet, you could take an Econ 101 course where you could learn about the free market economy, supply and demand, the storage value of money and other fairy tale concepts yet to be discovered.
But, of course, there were the college girls....
My tutor, professor Ben Bernanke says you lot are lying and all those are acceptable balance sheet expenditures on education. I've got my course book, stuck it on my CC. Essays on the great depression by said tutor and I'm ready to start my how to watch television course. I'll report back in 3years when I've got my first city banking job at JPM - assuming we're all still here.
The Anonymous leak.
Here's the candy.
http://thedocs.hostzi.com/
No more! Try its trace here: The Wayback Machine - http://archive.org/web/web.php
This is why i will contend till the day i die that an adult education is by necessity self directed and without compulsion, otherwise the information sought and recognised will never truly fit an individuals skill set, all rudimentary knowledge that is necessary not withstanding; math, reading/writing, basic chemistry/physics, spacial reasoning (art by the form that draws you,;dance, drawing, typesetting/code, whatever).
Compulsory education into adulthood(and i would argue also simply in childhood to some extent) is counter productive in many ways.
individuals should be encouraged to enjoy their time on earth through meaningful endeavors which they can contribute to materially.
They should have a course in how to be homeless and pay off your college loans.
Some of those may be unfairly portrayed (althought not many). I scanned anxiously for Cornell (my employer) and didn't find it. (Phew.) With that said, we have a very popular freshman writing sequence which is designed to teach you to write using a method in which wildly varying topics all have a common denominator--you write your ass off.
More to the point: half the majors in all the colleges could go away without much loss. Half of the colleges could probably go away. I see a lot of kids squander four years of opportunity. We need to reconstruct the system. Write now the free market is demanding this model. It will change. My older son went to a college (Paul Smiths) with four majors. It's not for rocket surgeons, but they do those four majors well. Many more colleges should specialize.
But to dig back into a previous point a little bit: anybody who drops $200K for a shitty education is asking to get shorn.
Can I steal your rocket surgeons line? Funny shit.
LBS, they won't knock...until they need to.
Then, they'll have the data to
support their interpretation of you as a ''terrist".
Little Mr Napolitano did tell us that if DHS budget was not increased, there will be terrorist attacks. Then viola, the Boston Marathon bombing.
So your telling me I should have skipped my "History of Rock and Roll" I took in college? It was a mad rush when signing up for classes to get in that one. Great class, spent all day listening to music.
I was fortunate to have parents pay for my school No way "the history of rock" was going on their tab. I was encouraged to take one class in active drama in order to get over apprehensions of public speaking / become more comfortable with solo and group ad-libbing in front of many others.
Of course, today there's no way they could afford the monteary-policy-bloated tab for college, so who knows what I might take if "Uncle Sam" were ultimately on the hook for my loan.
Why is "History of R&R" and different than "Jazz Appreciation" or "Traditional European Music 101?"
No pretense.
I don't think Frank would have enrolled in The History of Rock 'n Roll, probably would have preferred to make it.
Which he did. And a little jazz and classical. Without the pretense.
Naw, that wasn't in this list. Lets be honest, none of this is new. Basket weaving has long been a major since the 60's. don't quote on that one tho.
Even alumni of these institutions that took non-crazy courses in years and decades past will find their little pieces of paper as highly sought after as UST thanks to these corporate educators.
berea college in kentuck teaches basket weaving and all those crafts. actually more useful than most of the horseshit I took. sociology class prof talked about UFO's all class, every damn day.
My new classes:
"Moonbats, are they real?" (Ruffcut University)
"How to get people to turn on each other" (Federal Reserve college of criminal injustice)
"How to increase wealth with theft. (Goldman Sachs college for the Elite)
"Consistent Lying and utter Bullshit Thinking (Halls of Congress)
"Burning schools to the ground, a case study in postive cultural dynamics" ;)
BYOA
Ruffcut, you're really funny!! ALOL
Thirty-two percent of Americans actually consider themselves lower class… that’s up from twenty-five percent in 2008. With less job security, less disposable income and less opportunity, the definition of middle class isn’t what it used to be.
Only half of American households are middle-income…down from sixty-one percent in the 1970s.
Median middle-class income decreased five percent in the last decade.
And, rising college costs have put more pressure on middle class families. Students will graduate this year with an average of $35,000 in total loan debt.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/just-explain-it/just-explain-america-midd...
Class in Cyberporn.... could graduate Cum Laude
Class in Cyberporn.... could graduate Cum Laude [sic] and Commencement Speech in one.
the definition of middle class never changes, and never has changed. To be middle class requires about 180K in todays dollars. Politicians want everyone to think they are middle class, it furthers their agenda. Everyone else is MODERATE income or poor. Get ot right, and get used to it. IF you thought of yourself as middleclass and undershot the mark....well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Cum Loudly?
Let's compare university offerings in China and India with those of the US. They tell people who want these American-style courses over there: You go work on pig farm!
Amusing article... but I'm happy for universities to offer any damned courses they wish, as long as they're not being subsidised by my tax dollars, by QE, or debt writeoffs that are ultimately paid for by the former two.
It's only when people pay the full economic consequences of their actions that they can make rational decisions.
I didn't know San Francisco was considered the wilderness.
(reference to all the hobos here)
Those are skills they will actually use though, probably soon...
I found the "learn from Youtube" course a little ironic (if not self-negating for the college system).
I learned as much, if not more from Youtube as I did college.
How did you do in that "How to toptick bitcoin" course?...
Satoshi is doing just fine with his creation, thanks for asking. His creation will buy you a barrel of oil and you will have some change for pop and chips to keep you happy.
How are the Jews doing?
I'm not really sure...
~~~
But here's what I'm wondering... How come you bitcoiners don't have a lobby of lawyers & Anti-Defamation League in Switzerland?... All I can be sure of so far is that you have sychophants poised at internet terminals to down arrow comments...
You know you're really gonna need to get into MSM, banking, jurisprudence, & political activism to really make a splash in this world don't you?...
Oh well ~ I'll leave you alone... I'll call on your help & advice if my okra crop develops a fungus... [not for your horticultural expertise, but because I might need the number for a pizza delivery]...
& by the way... When was the last time you heard from Satoshi?... Send him my regards when you see him next time...
franc you're swinging without a corked bat today nice to read
@prains
~~~
Help me to decide the fonestar 'HALL OF FAME' entry for 2013...
~~~
Was it this one?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-03/bitcoins-go-parabolic#comment-3...
"I'm still a buyer of BTC at $140. Will be buying BTC at $500 too..."
~~~
or this one? [when AG was $30]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-03/bitcoins-go-parabolic#comment-3...
"I've got a lot more riding in physical silver than I do in BTC but it is funny how people support "free markets" until it doesn't look quite the way you expected it to. Doesn't it now?
Maybe BTC is what takes us to the next era and maybe the network forks and it becomes worthless. Either way that's the best $500 I ever spent to be part of the bravest, most daring monetary experiment in the past 500 years..."
~~~
Then again... It could be this... [a few comments down]
"No, Bitcoin finally represents RATIONAL EXUBERANCE"
And I still will buy BTC at $500 USD too!
Satoshi took away the sins of the fiat world!
He spoke as thus unto Fonestar, "I am Satoshi your cyberchrist, fear not knavish child for I have pardoned your debts. Go amongst the darkest interwebs, the seediest financial blogs.... even CNBC and preach the gospel of Satoshi."
I'm not usually a ZH 'voter', but I have to give you a [+1] for that...
~~~
It's a perfect conversation killer...
& while we're at it... let's do some math... It prolly means that your next AG 'buy' will be at $100 [which, in practice, might be hard to argue if & when it comes to that]...
I think Fone took a big snort of wasabi at some point and has yet to recover
True story:I fixed my washing machine, my Dyson, and my faucet from Youtube. Before that my mechanical skills were pumping gas in my car without setting the station on fire.
OT, but one more confirmation there is trouble in the physical metals market!
http://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=33&d=406
"I have been a broker for 20 years. Recently the major broker dealer I work
for asked me and my clients to leave due to too high of a concentration in
physical metals. After 4 months of trying to find a new home for my
business, and being denied by every major broker dealer in the US, I had
not choice but to become and RIA.
After three months of complete BS getting my RIA approved I am now in the
process of moving my clients and metals to the new custodian. Here is
where things get interesting. Every transfer is being rejected multiple
times for the any reason the old major broker dealer can come up with.
More interesting is all of the metals which have variable weights like
1,000 Silver, 100 oz gold and 50oz platinum, when the old broker dealer
finally does transfer the metals to the new custodian, NONE of the bars are
the same in weight or serial number as my clients statements. The old
broker dealer is having to come to me and my clients with bars of different
serial numbers and weight than the one listed on the statements or from
old trade confirms.
This mis-match on transfers proves to me that the old broker deal NEVER had
the metals and are now having to go acquire them to make good on client
transfers. Coincidentally, I was also a broker at Morgan Stanley in 2006
when MS got busted for excessive storage fees and it turned out MS never
owned the metals that were printed on client statements either.
Moral to the story, if you own metals at a major broker dealer, just
because they are printed on your statement, does not mean they exist. I
highly recommend shipping them home, even if they are in a qualified
account. If there too much to take out of a qualified account, transfer
them to a new custodian, for the new custodian will not accept the transfer
without video taping and verifying the move of metals from the storage
depository to the new storage depository.
Last thing, I am 100% for sure that the most of the metals have been
removed from the United States, and when the stock market and bond market
crashes this fall, all metals in private accounts will either not be there,
or confiscated. "
listen, I'm all in but come on. No name, no affiliation, just some guy said so??? Give me a litle more next time, please.
Check out "Wheat Receipts" by Dr. Stuart Crane.
Half of those classes might make an interesting 250 page paperback, but I'd buy it used for .99 and read it on a flight, not borrow to take a full semester course.
loool
damn i really love mr snyder for that one
hahaha
His site is great and to the point! These college courses are a total waste and just another sign of the dumbing-down of our culture in general.
I was having my tires changed recently and thought I would venture across the street to a major chain book store to see what they had. I was surprised at the lack of books! Most of them were what I would call, "picture books for adults". Some of them even had in large font "based on the reality tv show!"
LULZ
If you want to be 'amused' talk to a recent business grad. The ones I've spoken to are completely clueless as to what is happening in the economy today. They know little about the nature of money and banking, much less their impact on their lives. Just ask a business or economics grad if theyve heard of 'Austrian economics', 'Mises', or 'Rothbard'.
Might as well take some of the bogus classes listed instead. At least most people know they aren't 'learning' anything.
Some friends I know have kids who are finishing up their freshman year in college. They mentioned how 'well' they did in college this past year. I held my tongue, but was thinking "What does it matter if they got an A in the History of Jazz, Intro to Sociology, and other various useless courses ? "
they aren't useless. Only if a society is broken down to survial status. Society can be more enriching to the mind and soul than just 14 hours of farm labor or being a cube monkey
Enriching? This seems more like cultural decadence, mental mastrubation and a bizzare attempt to blend higher education with pop culture.
That 14 hours labour just got outsourced to some slave somewhere else on the planet. I can enjoy work and my T.S. Eliot too.
@HArdassets
were you not in the same boat when you were a recent grad?
No critical thinking skills in grammer, middle and high school leads to the evolution to these types of courses.
"grammar" ;)
If you take the cyberporn course you automatically get hired at the SEC.
They just don't have the time to train you to watch porn once you're there.
Ya know, it wouldn't be quite so bad if college graduates could spell and had a basic grasp of grammar and syntax. At least they could communicate their displeasure and grief more eloquently.
E.g.: "...one woman told me that her and her husband..."
Yes. And its not only language skills they lack, but a basic worldview that those of us who are older take for granted. Some years ago, while at a previous job I met an 18 year old working as a temp. He took to the job quite readily, learned quickly, and was clearly intelligent. While taking a break, once, he asked me if I'd ever seen the movie, Men In Black.
"Yeah, funny movie, I liked it."
"You know that part in the beginning? Where they show that swirly looking thing on a black background?"
"Um, yeah?"
"What is that?"
Funny, when you said they lack a basic worldview, I didn't think you meant literally!
You gotta be kidding.
Swear to god, Rusty. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I explained what a galaxy was to to the poor bastard.
The schools really are that bad.
My wife had a conversation with a guy who thought the "jet stream" was actually caused by air traffic.
No interest in astronomy - one of the oldest sciences.
Possibly because even a half-decent telescope is not cheap, and if one lives in a built-up area, light and atmospheric (particulate) pollution is a very major problem, so viewing conditions will never be good (often so bad that even a decent 'scope will be hard-pressed to provide useful planetary images, let alone fainter objects / structures).
Shame really, but that's the way it is. If you take astronomy seriously, it can (and will) become quite a financial black hole, but you will end up with publication-quality, totally memorable images.
Rocky, I was grounded for the weekend for saying " I should have swam" instead of " should have swum" when I was eight. My mother had corrected me before and felt that punishment would prevent another slip. Standards have changed. Grammar is challenging for me; just not my forte, but I always try. People don't seem to even bother anymore and feel it just doesn't matter. Unfortunately for them, being an effective communicator in many fields is still crucial.
Miffed;-)
My local radio station brags about having "less commercials."
Less and fewer is one of my pet peeves as well, but it's just a lost cause.
If you can count it, it's fewer. If it's just a measured amount, it's less.
"There is less rice in the bowl than when I started; but I left fewer grains of rice than yesterday."
Another one is the lack of use of the possessive pronoun to modify a gerund.
I resent you being so nitpicky!
Miffed;-)
My pet peeve is the use of healthy vs healthful. Now that is truly nitpicky!
"Less" versus "fewer" is one of the key distinctions between a person of some perception, as opposed to your run-of-the-mill ignorant twit. You know who you are!
One of the obvious corollaries of the Less v. Fewer Rule is that one never has less people, less firemen, less student-athletes, or even less transnational banksters, as persons are discrete units, rather than quantities within a continuum.
Oh! ...and "nauseated" vs "nauseous". I love that one.
Nauseous = Cause Nausea
Nauseated = Experience Nausea
If you are feeling nauseous, it means you are making people sick.
You are officially my hero.
@miffed
You did good.
; )
Tanks, you ain't bad youself!
Miffed;-)
You done did good.
Syntax - always sounds like a levy imposed on those who "did naughty things", especially in the view of the Church!
Also a nice reference to Russell Thorndike's "Dr Syn" - based on true events in the Romney Marshes (according to the Hastings Museum).
They don't teach grammar in grammar school anymore. They touch on nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs. They do not teach diagraming.
Thing is, critical thinking is an applied skill. You have to do it a lot to get better at it.
I think it matters a lot less what you apply these skills to, than that you are, in fact, facilitating a students' usage and practice of these skills. Who cares if you practice using newspaper stories or Judge Judy (or Judge Nepolitano for that matter)? A solid education can be generally enjoyable - and some of these, if taught well, could encourage further study rather than just boring the fuck out of everybody. As I remember, Star Trek was used as an appropriate illustration in my philosophy classes many times. Did that cheapen my education? I don't think so.
BTW - IMHO, critical thinking should be a core aspect of education from the beginning onwards - not a discrete class you check-off and move on from.
I was thinking the same thing. Actually, depending upon how it is taught, the last course there ("How to Watch Television") could be very useful. If people were to learn that television is about marketing and turning viewers into debt slaves, then the course would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. If people learned how effective the psychology of advertising is, then they might actually figure out that watching TV is not only a waste of time, but can actually be harmful to the individual in a variety of ways... having not owned a TV in years, I take every opportunity to point out the dangers of mindless TV absorption to those I meet in life. A course in that in college would be okay with me, and actually financially valuable to graduates.
I had a class like one of the above when I was in college. It really opened my eyes. The pop culture stuff is just a mechanism to get students thinking outside the box, and a "Lady Gaga" class description probably attracts the kind of students most in need of critical thinking skills. What is a pop star? Who creates them? How does advertising/media use symbolism and metaphor to shape minds and define culture?
These classes - if taught well - could give a student his/her first epiphany. One or two "completely ridiculous" classes over the course of four years would probably do more good than harm.
You guys are all espousing a liberal arts education. It is the mechanism through which critical thinking is taught.
I have a liberal arts education. Literature and philosophy are good bases to build knowledge on, however, almost all my lifetime income has been earned working blue collar jobs. I highly recommend the combination.
My uncle was on a committee ...their task was to rewrite high shcool senior science books for 4th grade reading level.
Sad.
Wadaya mean? They could be president one day. Ask Bush:
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" —Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000
LOL. Every time the guy tried to say 'nuclear' I used to grind my teeth.
He is the end product of a pass/fail education at yale. There may have been a learning disability in there some where.
Probably true. Another seems to have gotten where he is due to Affirmative Action. I wish I were in a protected class. Ok Mr Miffed, I know what you are thinking but don't you dare post it!
Miffed ;-)
Television is one of my favorite gimmicks, You pay for it but you still have to watch commercials and people are not upset about that?
it gives the observer something unproductive to do, making money even more valuable in the hands of the rich because less money is earned or put to use the more people watch T.V..
Poor cable providers have to come up with more ways to charge more money because of the evil internets and now they have Hulu my replacement favorite T.V. show provider, you pay for it and you have twice the number of commercials half the content and slow download speed all packed in one, how will they ever out do themselves?
Broke people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries.
Why on Earth has no one given you a green arrow for that before I came along?
Here's another; rich people plan 3 generations ahead. Poor people plan for Saturday night.
Not necessarily always the case. Many of the "truly broke" have shed the TV (and most other real "luxuries") as part of their "forced economic downsizing". Similarly there are many, many "rich" who have neither an interest in (nor practical use of) libraries - they prefer the ostentation of the "Media Suite" with the projection screen and surround-sound system.
If you teach (via electronic / visual media) having access to a decent sized screen (TV, Multimedia, whatever) at home means you can see things "as they will be projected" in the auditorium - which does help (well it helps me anyhow!) since it seems easier to spot flaws / poor composition in comparison to "desktop" sized monitor viewing. This may be why Diagnostic Imaging prefer to see their pics. on 56" LED monitors - I'm told this technology has really made the Radiologists lives a lot easier!
as an alum of SC im pretty digusted by that course
I can second that. Oddly there is a subtle influx of liberals in the history dept.
Double post.
Self cock sucking, an Exploration in love- Taught by Dr. Bernank.
Ebonics was almost taught at some Universities in the 1990s.
maybe that's the reason for this kinda stuff... http://tinyurl.com/n8hmfya
Thanks man, thats a cool site.
The elective course I thought was the worse at the time I was in college was "Comparative Invertebrate Embryology."
Now, seeing how our society has evolved into so many spineless fraudster worms out there, the course was not a waste after all. I better understand how these parasitic creatures evolved.
It's a long, long way from Amphioxus.
http://evolution.gs.washington.edu/amphioxus/
Coming soon to an ivy league college near you:
1. Day Dreaming - analyze what you think about when you are doing nothing at all.
2. Nose Picking - good or bad?
3. iPod Culture 101 - which are the best and worst apps.
Now every slacker can get a degree in what he already does all day.
Nose-picking (or rhinotillexis) - there might be more to this than you think (or rather Dr Friedrich Bischinger certainly has a lot of enthusiasm for this) - along with the associated mucophagy!
Seems to be as effective as vaccination methods . . . . . .
we had billiards and bowling for phys ed at my college.
21. Keynesian Economics
Communism group think 1131
That must be where they learn consensus and decision making hand signals.
Hey, I had a communism class in college and was one of my better classes. So many others thought the concept was better than what we have now, but forgot the big bear theory. Big chases off little bear, bigger bear chases big bear and that's how its been since we came on the planet.
It is not the rule of law, but the law of the rulers, the rest is all bullshit.
17. is probably a requirement for employment with such intitutions as FED or SEC.
I wonder how many credits would one get, and what would be the "graduation" process...
I think it's called the Masturbation Gesticulation Matriculation.
The biggest insult is that when you go and get a real degree, they make you take a smattering of stupid classes like this to "round out your education".
yeah and it drains their parents bank accounts
"Real degree" I wonder how you define that. None of these classes will help you directly in a job as a cog in the computer tech wonk field but many of them could help you learn to think, particularly thinking outside the box. Not that I have much against computer wonks, some of my best friends are wonks, but if you don't want to see things from a different angle then WTF are you reading ZeroHedge for? Big kids can glean important knowledge from classes like these if they are taught well and if one's mind hasn't been narrowed down to a point. The majority of people I graduated with are now doing jobs that didn't exist when we were in school and the real degree part came from learning how to think. I'd take the Zombie class in a heartbeat because it might teach sometime about society's changing memes.
Disclaimer: Hot button for me. Over the years I've come to hate hack jobs like Proxmire's Golden Fleece Awards and articles on $100 toilet seats for the military because they twist reasonable projects to pander to the great unwashed. Why am I seeing this stuff on ZH? Try flying upside down during evasive maneuvers in a plane filled with electronic equipment and your toilet has a $5 Home Depot toilet seat cover.
Exactly Dfred thanks for going against the grain on this hit piece. It's very easy to dismiss these types of courses by their titles and some maybe are complete drivel but usually buried in these courses teaching them are your best insurrectionist teachers who can subtly teach you the way to the red pill. It's funny how the major thread at Zh is an insurrectionist thread you all generally hate and despise the status quo and the institutions they control and/or represent yet you don't know what and how an insurrectionist operates. We're not all violence junkies, we're smart and calculating, and patient. It's sometimes buried in these course you are shown HOW TO THINK in multiple dimensions and within paradox, juxtaposition, deconstruction, irony etc.
NOT everything has to be taught like it's a fucking polytechnic. Those kids are made to feed the status quo machine, you're on ZH as insurrectionist (in part) you want to change the institutions don't be so quick to dismiss what you do not know or understand.
these course titles are sometimes honey traps to gather the sheep under a popular meme and then a smart prof shows these kids how fucking stupid they are through the course material and many leave with a red pill in their hands.
maybe you that poo poo these courses should seriously consider enrolling, go find a good insurrectionist thinker and let them show you the way
Yeah, the first course has the horrible Harry Potter title, but the class actually looks like a decent look into the idea that history isn't merely a bunch of indisputable facts, but rather a narrative from a particular perspective.
I know people, for example, who cannot fathom the idea of arguing with anything on the History Channel, because it's HISTORY!
My guess is that without these idiotic titles, they'd never get the attention of the average college stupid.
you hit the nail there, you have to train a dog with treats, you have to teach a kid without them knowing it sometimes
edit: to the junkers above, ZH is NOT a fucking echo chamber, we're all hear to listen and learn
Great points. I think it's more like putting the medicine in a ball of cheese so that the dog will take it. Fucking kids are such pussies and are so worried about their GPA they don't want to take a class with a title of something that sounds hard like...Math'. Bury the math part in something like 'Count the Diseased Cocks the Kardashians Have Created' and suddenly you've got a room full of students.
If I was in school, I'd totally be all over number 11. It would coincide with the Money & Banking course I took.
I actually think #11 is somewhat relevant, having read the entire bible and seen some of the passages slighting women in both the jewish and christian parts of the books. They are pretty offensive.
LOL! I actually meant number 12.
Oh yeah, 12 is completly absurd.
I will take " What if Harry Potter is real" for $200 , ALEX.
"Zombies in the Popular Media" Is that a study of CNBC?
CNBS has to be "popular" first.
That's why Columbia is IV League.
Oh yeah, 12 is completly absurd.
taught properly by a smart card holding red pill operator this course could in fact be the most relevant, interesting, and necessary course taught in the Various States of Detroitification today
edit: zombie is also code for sheeple, so if the title was "sheeple" in modern media you'd be crowing to heaven about how dumb the sheep are but they can't run a course called "Sheeple in the media" so they run it with the same more acceptable word, less accusatory and generalized
Don't laugh, but I got caught in a course like this once in college. Literature professors decided the material, you don't know what your in for until the class starts, and the courses are in demand as general education requirements (so you can't really drop or risk blowing schedules).
Fuck me... I wound up with a wierdo professor whose big thing was feminist literature (looked like he couldn't get laid so he decided to "figure 'em out" instead). About halfway through the semester I was pretty sure it would be good idea to remove my shoelaces and take away all sharp objects. Plus, every book had the same plot (woman struggles in a man's world and kills self in end).
Dudes who want to 'figure out' women are idiots.
Presumably women have women figured out.
That's why they all hate each other.
True, but women sure have me figured out.
No woman has figured out any women.This is pure unmitigated tripe and drivel oozing out of supposed "higher learning". This is fodder for the copius note taker set. Hell, I'm a woman and I haven't figured myself out. Does the noise in my head bother you?
Miffed;-)
Meniere's Syndrome - unilateral in my case. Permanent "noise in the head" which is why we live literally "on the water" - helps to act as a permanent distraction!
I sympathize. Recently had my right stapes bone cemented due to conductive hearing loss in my right ear. My hearing improved only in the higher frequencies. I also had sudden tinnitus, pressure and dizziness. Had an MRI because they thought I had an acoustic neuroma( scared the shit out of me but it was thankfully negative) Menieres was the next thought but my Ecog was normal. Next step is an CT scan of my temperal bone this monday and a VNG test next Friday. I also have a very rare condition called patous eustation tube in that ear as well. My ENT gave me a psyc referral due to the fact there is a high rate of suicide associated with it. Basically put a bucket on your head and talk. That's what it's like. Mr miffed was so confused when I had the hearing loss I spoke softer and softer. If I yell my head feels like it will explode on the right. I guess for a guy that can be a good thing :-). It's been almost 2 years trying to figure out what is wrong. So glad that tumor has , so far, been ruled out. Hope your menieres is not too debilitating. I know it can be.
Miffed;-)
Hopefully you got an A by telling the professor that you took the course to reach that inner woman that you know is deep down inside somewhere behind your penis.
Nothing new here. I took a course in the mid 1970s called "Physics for Poets". Since my math sucked I figured I could get the requirement out of the way with this course. The first day I walked into class the prof was covering the board with formulas. Ooops. Not for me. The title of the course was a farce. It was full-blown physics.
LOL. I took Physics for Poets at UW-Madison, and for the same reason. I also was not a "math person" but found that the prof I had was a genius at explaining the concepts of physics without getting too wrapped up in the more complex levels of mathematical proofs that generally accompany a physics class. Many of our exams involved essay questions that allowed us to explain the concepts in words rather than solely in mathematical formulae. It was one of the most difficult courses I took in college, but also one of the most rewarding in that it forced me to operate in an area that I was uncomfortable with and thought I was 'bad at". (I rocked the final and got an A.)
I took Music Appreciation but didn't see "Contemporary Eastern Music." A wacky professory eagerly demonstrated odd "instruments" (bird calls, screeching, shivering, scraping, boinging devices, etc) along with a load of mumbo jumbo psychobabble that was simultaneously absurd and boring. "We live and die alone but are part of the whole" "We are part of a stream of life" blah blah
Then there was the "music" - records (showing my age) of Tibetan monks "ohm"ing, a stick striking wood for 45 minutes (!), the infamous "symphony" of chimes, clangs and rattlers and even a few Western experimental pieces (Cage's 3'45" divided into 3 movements of...silence) Graduated engineering, became a consultant but that course was still a great resource of tales.
took an art history course once by a mad croatian painter (he was fucking good) anyway he slowly subtly taught us all (the entire class was white skinned) through art history he was able to show definitively that every last one of us was a white nigger to the man (oligarch) and we didn't even know it. And the history of art shows this meme travelling across centuries.
FUCKING GREAT COURSE inside a degree that was all about training for a profession.
Nowadays, it's "Physics for Rappers"...