All Posts Tagged With: "courses"
In defense of courses with crazy titles
Like Harry Potter 101, Superhero Science, Basket Weaving…
Is Harry Potter a bird course? Photo illustration by Casey David on Flickr
Last week, both crusty old curmudgeons and left-wing crusaders received an early holiday gift from Baylor University in Texas: an outrageously named course: Homosexuality as Gateway Drug.
Unsurprisingly, the local TV news played clips of offended students and the blogosphere went wild.
Piling on courses with offensive or trivial names has long been a pastime for those with plenty of time on their hands and not much sense of nuance. But the joke is old—and it needs to stop.
Case in point: Baylor later changed the official title of the offending course to something more generic. Meanwhile, it came out that the “course” in question was not a regular offering, but an independent study being pursued by a single student.
Hip-Hop courses proliferate
Students explore Jay-Z, Rap Poetics, Religion and Hip Hop
Religion and Hip Hop by Erik Quinn on Facebook
Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. has launched a new course centred on the works of rapper Jay-Z, reports The Nation.
It’s getting a lot of attention, but it’s certainly not the first time that a prestigious university has used hip-hop to help students explore big questions.
Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z has units on “Hustling Hermeneutics” and the “Monster of the Double Entendre.” The course is popular so far, with 140 signed up—about three-times the normal enrollment for a Georgetown seminar.
“Many are white kids—they bring a level of criticism about the culture they have emerged from… because they’ve seen that culture through Jay-Z’s eyes,” course instructor Michael Eric Dyson told The Nation, explaining the course’s popularity among a student body that’s only 6.7 per cent African-American.
When your course holds you hostage
The first step is acknowledging the problem.
When I finished Organic Chemistry in my second year, I thought I would never have to see chemistry again. I knew I would be taking Biochemistry the following semester, but I deluded myself into thinking that Biochemistry isn’t REALLY chemistry.
I even managed to convince myself that I enjoyed the course. That lipid bilayers are a fascinating cellular structure and that there’s a simple yet elegant beauty to the assembly of proteins.
Throughout last semester I thought I liked Biochemistry. Now I realize it was just Stockholm syndrome.
-Photo courtesy of digitalprimate
How NOT to choose electives
Biology + biology + biology + biology = too much biology.
I’m sick of biology. It’s been my favourite subject since grade 11, but I did something really stupid this semester: I took four biology courses all at once.
I didn’t take them just for the heck of it. I’m not one of those keeners who would take astro-neurological biochemical physics as an elective because it sounds kinda interesting. Yes, I love biology. But the main reason why I chose to take all four biology courses at the same time is because I need a certain number of science electives in order to graduate. So why not do them all in one semester? Like ripping off a band-aid in one shot.
But I’ve since learned that biology courses aren’t like band-aids- they’re more like nuts. Having too many makes you feel queasy, and amazed you ever liked them in the first place.
-Photo courtesy of me and the sysop
The class everybody loves…or hates
How to mess up biology. Or fix chemistry.
After writing my organic chemistry exam last semester, I was officially done with chemistry. Forever.
Never again would I see the words “valence shell” or “titration.” I’d never have to draw resonance structures or identify the chirality of a molecule. All my remaining science credits are biology courses, which is my favourite subject area. The Reign of Chemistry was over.
Kind of.
This semester I have biochemistry and I can’t decide if I hate it or love it. It’s a combination of biology, my favourite class, and chemistry, my least favourite class.
Which means that when I’m sitting in a lecture, half the time I find the material interesting and engaging, and the other half of the time I want to gouge my eyeballs out with the corner of my spiral-bound notebook.
I’d love to know the origins of biochemistry. Was it created by a thoughtful biology professor who wanted to make chemistry more interesting than usual? Or was it created by a bitter chemistry professor who wanted to make biology more boring than usual?
It’s kind of like the university version of a lame cartoon-crossover.
Except instead of combining The Flintstones and The Jetsons, it’s combining thermodynamics and living organisms.
-Photo courtesy of Alicia Nijdam
Take what you’re bad at
When choosing your courses, be bold.
Recently, I came across the following advice and wanted to share it with the three of you who read this blog:
All through my undergraduate days, I worried that my limited mathematical talents might keep me from being more than a naturalist. In deciding to go for the gene, whose essence was surely in its molecular properties, there seemed no choice but to tackle my weakness head-on [...] And so my Bs in two genuinely tough math courses were worth far more in confidence capital than any A I would likely have received in a biology course, no matter how demanding.
This advice comes from James Watson, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA.
It is good advice for today’s students who have, I have often noticed, a distressing essentialism when it comes to their abilities. Students often come to university convinced that they “can’t do math” or that they are “no good at writing essays” and that no amount of diligent study or sound instruction could ever remedy that deficiency.
One culprit, ironically enough in this context, may be a wide-spread misunderstanding of genetics itself, whereby people have come to see their genes as determiners of fate rather than generators of proteins. Another may be the current fashion for teaching based on “learning styles” that often imply that students can only learn in certain ways and should not be encouraged to learn in ways that are not easy for them.
But I agree with Watson. Students should extend themselves into those areas which they find intimidating, especially when they would otherwise miss out on what they want to study. If astronomy fascinates you, take the course and figure out how to do the math you need to do (or take the math, first). If medieval literature is your thing, get into that course and work your butt off learning how to write research papers. Others have done it, and so can you.
As Watson acknowledges, you may not be the best in your class, but what you learn will make up for it. And while there may be a few cases of genuine impairment, I contend that for the vast majority of qualified university students, there is very little that you really can’t do.
[An earlier version of this post mistakenly identified the author of the quoted passage as Francis Crick. The present author regrets any confusion.]
When your course load gets too heavy…
…there’s a solution
Take this course. It’s good for you.
Why do universities inflict such needless pain?
My recent post on bumping up grades led to some interesting discussion about required courses. I don’t mean a particular course deemed essential for any major (e.g. Shakespeare may be required for English majors; organic chemistry may be need for chemistry majors and so on). I mean those requirements that students typically take in first year, whatever their major turns out to be.
At my university they’re called “core” requirements. At some places they’re called distribution requirements. In all places, they give many students headaches, if not nightmares. Why bother with these requirements? Why should a prospective history major need to take a course in the physical sciences? Why should a student who is planning on becoming a nurse take a course in literature? Wouldn’t their time be better spent studying subjects related to their chosen disciplines and careers?
There, of course, is the rub. The question is serious and it gets to the heart of higher education: what, ultimately, is it for? If you are an idealist like me, you think it is for education in its broadest and deepest senses. Higher education trains the mind to be critical and the imagination to be active. It teaches skepticism and creativity. It teaches broad-mindedness and, one hopes, a modicum of compassion comes along with that.
It is for this reason that universities frequently require this range of courses. The university, if grudgingly and less and less all the time, still tends to accept the idea that anyone with a bachelor’s degree ought to have a certain breadth of knowledge and a certain range of reading and experience. A comparative literature student may be just a comp lit major while she is a student, but when she graduates she will continue to be a citizen. And many of our pressing social questions make more sense to those who have at least some idea of what science is and how it works. Similarly, the humanities — English, Philosophy and the like– demand of us that we think deeply about the most profound questions of life itself. Every educated person should have to confront these questions of ethics, of religion, of value. Frankly, when I am dying, I would feel better knowing my nurse has read King Lear.
But distribution requirements demand that university faculty, Deans, and others think carefully about just how broad a range of courses they can demand. Until recently, my university required arts students to complete not just a course in the history and philosophy of science, but also a course in mathematics (or something similar like accounting or statistics). When it was proposed that the math requirement be eliminated (students hated it, and often failed it, and some stayed away from the university because of it), I, and many others were uncertain. After all, wasn’t a competency in mathematics necessary to understand politics, science, and a host of other areas? Isn’t numeracy, in some ways, as important as literacy?
Eventually, I came to favour the change to remove math as a strict requirement (it can now fulfill that science requirement, along with many other courses). My thinking was that mathematics was such a specialized skill that many very good students, even if they worked hard, would struggle. And why should they have to have a D on their transcripts for the rest of their lives, just to please us idealists? Especially when they still had to take something in the area of the sciences, plus a social science, English, and so on.
In general, though, these requirements don’t really cause that many problems for students who are willing to approach them with an open mind. Some of my best English students are science majors, and most universities science departments put on special courses for Arts students to let them meet those requirements.
So, to all you first-year students out there, struggling to understand Plato as you struggle to understand why you have to study Plato, take heart. Though you may not see it now, it is good for you.
Luring students with gimmicky course titles
“The Oprah Effect,” “Bad Girls of the Bible” and “Zap, Pow, Bang: Pop Lit”
University professors are spicing up course titles to attract the focus-challenged, head-in-the-cloud, abbreviation aficionados of today’s youth.
“The Oprah Effect,” “Bad Girls of the Bible” and “Zap, Pow, Bang: Pop Lit” are just a few examples of new, “grabbier” titles doctored to hook and lure the exotic “Internet generation” of current students.
I think they should give us cookies and hugs too.
The brains behind this latest “bid for fussy students who keep heading for business and engineering” extol their brilliance in Louise Brown’s Toronto Star article here. I, however, can’t help but feel a little insulted.
I can read 200-character course descriptions. You don’t need to say “Paris Hilton” or “OMG” to spark my interest.
Susan Knabe of the University of Western Ontario calls the title of her course, “Bad Girls: Sexual Dissidence and Popular Culture,” her “bait and switch.”
I think holding a glow stick or shiny spoon during the first day of classes would work equally as well.
Personally, I’d stray from these gimmicky courses. However fallacious my thinking may be, I can’t help but assume that the courses doused with perfume are the ones covering up their obvious irrelevance. Then again, I could be wrong.
Maybe I’ll check out some course outlines… if only I didn’t have so much tweeting, blog hopping, and celebrity gossip to get through. Damn my short attention sp—
Pick classes with the most girls
Careful analysis might not be the best way to design your university career
I had always planned to take time off after high school to travel and work. I wanted to gain some life experience before deciding what I wanted to study for four years, I suppose because I subscribed to the “major = career” theory. The circumstances at the time didn’t let me do that, and here I am heading straight into university. While I’ve come to understand that your major certainly doesn’t have to equal your career, I still don’t know what I want to study or what kind of career I want to have. And I think taking time off would’ve helped me get a better idea of both of those things. So, if you can, I suggest taking some time off between high school and university.
If that’s not an option, you have to figure out some means of choosing courses (and yes, eventually, a major), that you find interesting and enjoyable and that hopefully lead you to an interesting career.
My method of choice, being an analytical, planner personality type (according to this impressively accurate personality test), has been to carefully consider what kind of lifestyle I want in the future and what kind of work I find rewarding and fulfilling, and to work backwards from there in terms of what kind of jobs offer those things and then what qualifications are needed to get those jobs. Kind of a painstaking process, but it’s the best I’ve been able to come up with.
Despite this reasonably thorough investigation, I still don’t really know what I want. I have a lot of ideas, but there are pieces missing. So, today I went to a professor and businessman I know seeking advice. He leads a lifestyle I think I would enjoy, he works on interesting and important projects, he’s very opinionated, and I respect his judgment very much.
Instead of the careful analysis I expected from a distinguished academic, his advice was refreshingly different, with an understated wisdom that I suppose is often overlooked by us analytical types. Simply, he said, take courses you will enjoy. Take the courses with the most girls in them! It’ll be fun. An undergraduate degree should teach you how to think well and communicate well; the content is less important.
So now I throw these factors into the mix. Follow your interests, have fun, and try to choose courses (or at least sit in on lectures) with professors who have a reputation for the way they think and teach – not necessarily what they teach. Along with a little careful analysis of your own, I think that’s a pretty good balance.
Crash course in copyright law for professors
U.S. interactive guide shows how to avoid breaking copyright in class
When I went to university, there were two types of professors: those who loved using audio, video clips and pictures in their classroom slideshows, and those who stood at the front of a lecture hall and talked.
But according to Baruch College at the City University New York, some professors might not be using copyrighted material in their classes because they don’t want to break any copyright laws and are erring on the safe side. For those teachers, and those who might be unknowingly breaking the law, the university recently released their interactive guide to using multimedia in academic courses.
Riding the “copyright metro,” professors can click through various questions about the multimedia they want to use in the classroom or online, which leads the user though a maze of options and questions, along with some additional information about fair use and American copyright law.
Keep in mind, though, it’s a primer on American copyright law. For some Canadian copyright resources for profs, you can take a peek at the Canadian Education Ministers of Canada’s Copyright Matters!
A little Bird told me…
Need some help finding a great (and easy) elective?
Trying to decide which electives to take to balance your course load for next term? Can’t choose between that psychology or philosophy course?
Just check out Birdcourses.com. It’s a website where Canadian university students can vote on their courses’ “birdiness.” Or in other words, how Mickey Mouse a course is.
My undergrad enrollment appointment is this week. Meaning, I need to know exactly what electives I want for next semester. Thanks to one of the best websites ever, I was able look for the perfect electives that could complement my course load.
Yes, courses that sound easy and almost guarantee a good mark.
All of the most important intel about a course is listed on a single page. This includes which professors you should try to get, and whether tests and finals (if the course even has them) are essay-based or multiple choice.
Plus, there’s a section for comments where other students can share their impressions of the course.
Of course, some students want to take courses that also broaden their perspectives, enriching their lives with new ways of thinking, helping them discover a more profound sense of Self. Or something like that.
Just as long at the course has a perfect 5 on the birdiness scale.
Sometimes you’ll see a course with a mixed rating. Like Molecular Biology at Waterloo. Whoever posted this course thought they should spread the joy known as Molecular Biology, by claiming “This course is easy-fasheezy. You learn about cells and how they affect you and why you should care. Word! This course was so fun.”
I was thrilled when I read that. It’s a course I need to take in third year. Now instead of dreading it, I could actually look forward to it.
But then I read some of the comments posted from other students who had already lived through the course.
“No…this course is by far one of the hardest bio’s i’ve taken and is known to be a really hard biology…if ur looking for an easy bio try 439.”
And, “Without a doubt, the hardest bio course, and aside from org. chem, the hardest course ive taken yet! i took it DE…biggest mistake! assignments and quizzes are easy enough to make you think you can do ok…the final is BRUTAL!”
This is one of the small dangers of the site. Although most students simply want to share the triumph/euphoria of having found the perfect bobo class, there’s always someone with a sick sense of humour.
Turns out that Molecular Biology course might not be so birdy after all.
“I don’t know who put this course on this site. But it definitely licks balls.”
- Photo courtesy of klynslis
An open letter: repeal U of T flat fee
“I will not be allow myself to be priced out of an education,” writes incoming student
Actor Andrew Hachey graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in 2004, and is set to start this fall in the University of Toronto’s faculty of arts and sciences, majoring in sociology and political science. The following is an open letter he recently sent to the university in protest of its plan to institute a flat fee in the department. For more on U of T’s proposed flat fee, click here.
—
My name is Andrew Hachey, and I will be entering the Faculty this fall as a first-year student in the social sciences. I am one of the thousands whom your recent decision to change the manner in which full-time undergraduate fees are levied in the Faculty of Arts and Science will most directly affect.
For the past five years I have lived and worked as a professional film and theatre artist. Even after achieving modest success, I find myself in a precarious financial situation and, given the current economic climate, prospects for future work are grim. Like so many others I have chosen to pursue further post-secondary education in order to position myself better in the emerging creative jobs market and the “knowledge-based” economy. Given that 70% of new listed jobs require some form of post-secondary education, it is vital to maintain its accessibility for all Ontarians regardless of socio-economic background and standing. The roughly $1000 per credit (and rising) the University of Toronto currently charges already represents a barrier to my attendance. But now, having received the Faculty’s email dated May 21 containing the update on the tuition fee structure change for full-time students in Arts and Science I am simply outraged the University administration has only now divulged this information, having ostensibly considered its implementation for some time. Though I have had the benefit of being aware of this proposal prior to their official notification (if only for mere weeks), I am angered that so many were not and that, therefore, those who will be directly affected by this policy unknowingly made decisions without complete information.
Without consultation or adequate warning, thousands of students have now turned down offers of admission from other institutions in favor of the University of Toronto. According to the Ontario Universities Application Centre: “Applicants may have only one acceptance of an offer on file at a time. Before applicants can accept a subsequent offer online, they must first cancel the previously accepted offer.” Although some of these decisions may not be officially final, many are and due to the appallingly last-minute notice given by the Faculty, most canceled offers which are not will now be virtually impossible to regain as deadlines have since passed and limited program spaces now filled up. The Dean’s claim regarding these offers, that “nothing is set in stone,” as told to members of the Governing Council is, at best, disingenuous. Given these realities, students are now left with two choices: agree to a fee structure that will, ludicrously, charge us for services we will not use if we, like 50% of Arts and Science undergraduates, do not take five courses, or stay home this fall. Given current economic realities, the latter may simply not be an option.
By adopting a program fee structure in this manner, the University has effectively chosen to create a two-tiered post-secondary institution that is unloading debt accrued from bad investments and a lack of adequate government lobbying onto the shoulders of unsuspecting students. Furthermore, taking this action despite broad-based opposition from faculty, staff, students and alumni reveals that the University of Toronto is becoming increasingly undemocratic in its governance by marginalizing perspectives of those whose interests are most at stake.
