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Classes are Crap.

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VprHis

VprHis

Get off my lawn, you hooligans!
I'm watching the misery the local grad students are enduring, and it got me thinking about my college past. So I thought I'd do my best Thump impression and start a 'question' thread.

What were your....

Favorite classes?
Worst Classes?
Toughest?
Easiest?

Any level of school....

Favotites: Molecular Virology (viruses do cool shit) and DiffEQ (It's fucked-up and I don't understand a damn bit of it--but I love the fact that few people even know what it is, let alone take the class)

Worst: Biochem 801. Utterly pointless class. rehash of stuff I had as an undergrad at OSU.

Easiest: Anything Psychology or English. All 500-level (so no stupid busywork). I strongly recommend English 571, if they still offer it. Studies in film. It's all Orson Wells and Stanley Kubrick.

Hardest: Advanced Microbial Pathogenesis - course reading was just over 1600 pages of journal articles, and we had to know all of it. Exam? 5 questions, essay. I filled 15 pages in 2 hours.
 
Favorite and toughest were both the same: the Russian history classes taught by Allan Wildman. He had a reputation as one of the toughest profs in both the history department and any Russian-East European related course, but he was also the best teacher I had at either Ohio State or Chicago. Internationally renowned scholar and editor of one of the two major journals in the field too, which lays to rest the theory that great researchers can't or don't care about teaching.

It's been awhile, but off the top of my head, I'd add the following:

Toughest without being a favorite: the 131-33 physics series

Toughest and Least favorite: the 151-53 calculus series

Easiest: probably a 19th century Russian literature class. If you did the reading (which was between 500 and 1,000 pages/week) you were all but guaranteed an A. Although, if you didn't do the reading, you didn't pass. It was a boatload of reading, but knowing that doing it resulted in an A, took a lot of the pressure off.
 
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Favorites: Some sociology classes in undergrad. Always thought the subject matter was interesting and had some awesome profs who really made me think.

Worst: Some art class I took as a requirement. Never understood a damn thing I was looking at.

Easiest: Some Spanish summer class.

Hardest: Accounting classes. They always made me think the most and not in an enlightened way.
 
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Favorite classes - Basically any writing-based English class, I can't remember the course number(s)

Worst Classes - Stats 145 (soooooooooooooo boooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing)

Toughest - Political Science 535 - I had a very demanding teacher, which was good. I learned a lot.

Easiest - Political Science 595, History of Rock & Roll (Music 250), Introduction to Intelligence (International Studies 350)
 
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Favorite classes: Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, Popular Fiction, The History of AI & Science Fiction, Latin I & II
Worst Classes: Compiler Construction (incredibly boring), Psychology: Human Development (terrible professor)
Toughest: Theory of Programming Languages, Theory of the Algorithm: Senior Seminar
Easiest: Calculus, Intro to Fine Arts, Outdoor Recreation, Linux Administration, Abnormal Psychology
 
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Favorite: Comm 650 and my Swahili language courses ( :biggrin: )

Worst: Geo Science (GEC) and Philosophy (GEC). Both were a ton of useless, boring information.

Toughest: Ehh.. nothing too tough, though I did not enjoy Chem all too well.

Easiest: A music and art class I took freshman year (can't remember the exact name). We got to listen all the sweet songs from the 1950s-now. Comm. 100 and 200 were easy, as well.
 
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Favorite classes - Hitler and Nazi Germany, WWII seminar, Race and Ethnicity in the American West, Urban Sociology, Digital Libraries, most of my scholarly publishing classes
Worst Classes - Cell Biology, Organization of Information (Cataloging)
Toughest - Historical Thought, Zoology, Public History Methodologies, Digital Libraries, Reference and Information Services
Easiest - Colonial America, Civil War, Intro to Scholarly Publishing, Scholarly Editing, Technology for Information Professionals, Race and Ethnicity, Amish and Appalachian Cultures, French, German
 
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Favorite classes: most of my grad school classes... I was able to dovetail many of the projects into work projects... the timing was excellent.. Most ironic, I rcvd a B on a project I used at work that resulted in me getting a monster promotion... and put me on the presentation circuit for Assoc of National Advertisers for a while.. too amusing.. some instructors need to get jobs in the real world
Worst Classes: Eastern Civs
Toughest: I never could see the applicabilty of calc and especially DiffEq .. plus I felt my instructors were worthless
Easiest: anything math or stats related

Biggest surprise: I took an Education class on Audio Visual Aids strictly as filler and easy A... what I had no idea was that what I learned in that class I have used more than anything I've ever taken especially with projects for my kids.. taught me how to draw (which I NEVER could), how to resize, diff materials, color combinations, presentation tricks that helped me in my work career...
 
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Favorite/toughest: Ethics courses with "Dr. Death," named not for his class on Death and Ethics but for being the toughest professor on campus. He would kick people out of class for giving an answer without adequate thought or misusing the word "like." Toughest discussions and papers ever... it was fantastic.

Easiest/worst: Required 101-type music appreciation class. I scored poorly on the first paper for being too analytical and was annoyed after hearing the ones that scored well. The next paper concerned a recital at a local church, and I wrote it like a bad romance novel - "my heart beat in time with the music," "it was with tears in my eyes and a soaring heart..." - I believe the phrase "throbbing organ" may have been used. I read it to a friend who thought it was hilarious but said it shouldn't be submitted because clearly I was just making fun of the class. Did anyway, and the professor not only scored it as perfect, but asked for permission to share it with the class and keep it as a reference for future classes. Horrified, I said I wanted to copy it first and promptly "lost" it.
 
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Favorites
African Geography w/ Dr.Yeboah at Miami
Modern German History w/ Dr.Beyerchen at tOSU
Book of Revelation at St.Xavier
AP European History at St.Xavier

Least Favorites
Statistics 130 at tOSU

Most worthless class-
Educational Leadership at Miami aka "Everything wrong w/ schools is the fault of straight white males"

Easiest-
Sociology 101 at tOSU-I got a B w/out reading the textbook or studying for any tests. In retrospect I could have gotten an A, but there was beer to be drunk,
Russian Culture 101 at tOSU-I have a minor in Russian, so I was interested in the class and breezed through w/ an A, but I realized there was a reason why 15 tOSU football players were in the class-and high fived each other when they got C's on their tests
 
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Not even close...

Worst & Toughest: Psychology 300

Favorite & Easiest:
4015096610_62224dd7cd.jpg


:biggrin:
 
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Worst: Introductory calculus in the Engineering Faculty at Ohio State. Chinese lecturer who could not be understood, even in one-on-one conversations.

Best: Roger Blackwell Marketing 650 (Introductory course) and Consumer Behavior (I think it was BA750). Still using what he taught 30 years later.
 
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