Here's my attempt to shake it up a bit... crazy/unique courses you've taken

[justskipee]

I'm just curious what fun, crazy, unique, exotic, cool courses you have taken to supplement the tedious pre-med curriculum.

Also, during an interview were you asked about any of these courses?


I'll start, sophmore year I took a course taught by Ben Sidran, an artist in residence at UW, called "Jewish Popular Music in America: Berlin to Kravitz." Who knew that mainly jews started the record and movie industry in the US. Another point for the Jews.

I also am in University Band, and have taken it every semester, and my interviewer looked at my amcas and was like, band, band, band, band...band, whats with all this band class?? Made for a fun convo.

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[MrBurns10]

For my school, before freshman year you have to rank a few seminar or writing courses that you're interested in taking and they assign you one for your first semester. Well, I was assigned to take a seminar titled: "XXX Generation: Sex in Contemporary Fiction" (which was my 4th and last choice, one I didn't think I'd actually get). We got to do cool stuff like read Fight Club and watch American Psycho, but we also had to watch soft core porn about a group of people who got off on watching/getting into/causing car crashes and read about a serial killer who did...inappropriate things with the body parts of victims. The class definitely wasn't boring, but thank goodness I was never asked about that one in an interview. Soft core porn isn't nearly as fun when you have to watch it with a professor.

 

[UCDavisdude]

anyone watching the cowboys-skins game??wth is going on!

 

[omgwtfbbq?]

I took a Shamanism class, but it wasn't academic. It was purely experiential. The teacher taught one or two classes about the belifs and symbolism behind all of the motions, but then we learned how to smudge and how to do different kinds of journeys and each class we were all on the floor in a dark room listening to the drum beat and trying to journey ourselves. It was a REALLY interesting class.

For my school, before freshman year you have to rank a few seminar or writing courses that you're interested in taking and they assign you one for your first semester. Well, I was assigned to take a seminar titled: "XXX Generation: Sex in Contemporary Fiction" (which was my 4th and last choice, one I didn't think I'd actually get). We got to do cool stuff like read Fight Club and watch American Psycho, but we also had to watch soft core porn about a group of people who got off on watching/getting into/causing car crashes and read about a serial killer who did...inappropriate things with the body parts of victims. The class definitely wasn't boring, but thank goodness I was never asked about that one in an interview. Soft core porn isn't nearly as fun when you have to watch it with a professor.

 

[hannahx]

I'm just curious what fun, crazy, unique, exotic, cool courses you have taken to supplement the tedious pre-med curriculum.

Also, during an interview were you asked about any of these courses?


I'll start, sophmore year I took a course taught by Ben Sidran, an artist in residence at UW, called "Jewish Popular Music in America: Berlin to Kravitz." Who knew that mainly jews started the record and movie industry in the US. Another point for the Jews.

I also am in University Band, and have taken it every semester, and my interviewer looked at my amcas and was like, band, band, band, band...band, whats with all this band class?? Made for a fun convo.

Just curious, but UW..? What does the W stand for?

I think one of my faves was "The Bible as Literature".

 

[DrMike24]

I took a pretty cool class freshman year as part of honors: "Music, Myth, Movies, and Madness: The Study of Creativity" The class looked at creativity in several disciplines. It was pretty interesting.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Well, I'm a mortuary science major. Anyone care to attempt to top "Embalming Techniques and Practicum" as the craziest premed course?

 

[justskipee]

Just curious, but UW..? What does the W stand for?

I think one of my faves was "The Bible as Literature".

Wisconsin...of course.

 

[chaeymaey]

Early Italian Humanism, Dante's Poetic Vision, and Social and Intellectual History of Europe rank as some of my favorite classes in college.

 

[justskipee]

all the classes I took are coming back to me.

"Stress reduction and relaxation" - we learned all different meditation techniques, learned techniques on how to destress, sweet stuff. I use the stuff I learned all the time.

"music cultures of the world: Bali, Java, Japan, China and more"

 

[OddNath]

Well, I'm a mortuary science major. Anyone care to attempt to top "Embalming Techniques and Practicum" as the craziest premed course?

Wow. So that class had a lab component as well?

My favorite class was a year of Electronic Music Composition...but..um..yeah, we didn't have to embalm anything. You definitely win this one.

 

[ADeadLois]

I'm just curious what fun, crazy, unique, exotic, cool courses you have taken to supplement the tedious pre-med curriculum.

Also, during an interview were you asked about any of these courses?


I'll start, sophmore year I took a course taught by Ben Sidran, an artist in residence at UW, called "Jewish Popular Music in America: Berlin to Kravitz." Who knew that mainly jews started the record and movie industry in the US. Another point for the Jews.

I also am in University Band, and have taken it every semester, and my interviewer looked at my amcas and was like, band, band, band, band...band, whats with all this band class?? Made for a fun convo.

I took a class on Sufism, which is a type of Islamic mysticism. (Like what Kabbalah is to Judaism). It was very interesting, and the professor was awesome. These kinds of classes definitely kept my sanity through all the pre-med res.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Yeah, there's a definite lab component. It's definitely interesting....some of the procedures are rather disturbing (two words: cavity work), but it's not boring.

 

[justskipee]

Yeah, there's a definite lab component. It's definitely interesting....some of the procedures are rather disturbing (two words: cavity work), but it's not boring.

ewwww, dead people.

 

[MarzMD]

Topics in Japanese Cinema. Which ended up being a course where we got to watch anime and other wierd japanese movies, and write essays about it.

 

[MarzMD]

For my school, before freshman year you have to rank a few seminar or writing courses that you're interested in taking and they assign you one for your first semester. Well, I was assigned to take a seminar titled: "XXX Generation: Sex in Contemporary Fiction" (which was my 4th and last choice, one I didn't think I'd actually get). We got to do cool stuff like read Fight Club and watch American Psycho, but we also had to watch soft core porn about a group of people who got off on watching/getting into/causing car crashes and read about a serial killer who did...inappropriate things with the body parts of victims. The class definitely wasn't boring, but thank goodness I was never asked about that one in an interview. Soft core porn isn't nearly as fun when you have to watch it with a professor.

Was that writing 20? My writing 20 class was so boring. Something about gender in literature or something. I dont even remember what we did in the class, just that our teacher cried during one of the classes because we complained about grades or something.

 

[nena]

i took this one class, Literature and the Occult..it was soooo interesting!!

 

[fenixwbp]

"Literature of the Black Plague"

Freshman seminar course. Pretty interesting.

 

[preetster]

"Vampires: Blood and Empire" or something like that. We pretty much watched movies and read vampire stories. It was a good break from the bio stuff.

 

[Twitch]

These were from grad school, but interesting, nevertheless:

-> Strategy
-> Negotiations
-> Data Mining
-> Market Research
-> Industry Stuctures & Dynamics
-> Global Entrepreneurship
-> Business Law

A bunch of others from undergrad:

-> Fluid Mechanics
-> Science Fiction

 

[justskipee]

These were from grad school, but interesting, nevertheless:

-> Strategy
-> Negotiations
-> Data Mining
-> Market Research
-> Industry Stuctures & Dynamics
-> Global Entrepreneurship
-> Business Law

A bunch of others from undergrad:

-> Fluid Mechanics
-> Science Fiction

ooh, those sound fun.

 

[gdbaby]

"The Political Left in Revolutionary Society"

I teach a cool cultural anthropology class called "Theorizing the Body" for seniors/graduates.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

ewwww, dead people.

That's a healthy attitude for someone who wants to go to med school.

 

[-Goose-]

"Molecular Mechanisms of Environmental Toxins"

best course ive ever taken. it truly changed my life.
b/c the prof is a 'famous' biochemist, i was asked about the course at nearly all my interviews.

 

[anystream]

"the simpsons and philosophy"

yeah...you basically watch the cartoon and discuss it.

other random classes at my school: "the physics of surfing", "approaches to reading harry potter" and "male sexuality" which included a field trip to a strip club one semester...they got in trouble for that though

 

[Orthodoc40]

Well, how about bowling?
Growing up in MA, we only learned candlepin bowling, so a friend & I decided to take bowling to learn how to 10 pin bowl Pretty funny, (but it was only a half credit)....

 

[justskipee]

"the simpsons and philosophy"

yeah...you basically watch the cartoon and discuss it.

other random classes at my school: "the physics of surfing", "approaches to reading harry potter" and "male sexuality" which included a field trip to a strip club one semester...they got in trouble for that though

haha, very funny you. I'm on to you're little joke.

 

[GoodEats]

Yar, as my friend put it, I'm undergoing pirate training...took/TA'd ballroom dancing, and taking fencing next semester.

 

[anystream]

haha, very funny you. I'm on to you're little joke.

no they're real! www.decal.org

here's a little blurb aboout the male sex class: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/01/MN47744.DTL

 

[IDforMe]

Globalization of Social Change was one of my most eye-opening and unique classes....
but I always did want to go to Sweden and earn a degree in cow milking (they offer them there). I'm sure that would be a great conversation point at an interview.

 

[justskipee]

no they're real! www.decal.org

here's a little blurb aboout the male sex class: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/01/MN47744.DTL

wow, thats really cool.

I can't believe you were part of the male sexuality class that did these things:

"The course was suspended after it was reported that students had had an orgy at a party, taken photos of their genitals and gone to a strip club where an instructor joined in."

Sounds pretty crazy for a pre-medder.

 

[MrBurns10]

Was that writing 20? My writing 20 class was so boring. Something about gender in literature or something. I dont even remember what we did in the class, just that our teacher cried during one of the classes because we complained about grades or something.

No, that was my seminar. My writing 20 class was definitely one of my favorites...it was Detective Fiction, and all we did was read mystery fiction (Sherlock Holmes, Sue Grafton, etc.) and watch movies. Of course there was that whole writing papers thing, but it was a great class.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

The most unusual class I took was called Byzantine Art - which makes sense. Some cool aspects of the class were looking at the influence of Byzantine architecture and art on the Western Renaissance, and on Islamic, Persian, and even Chinese art, and the influences of these arts, respectively, on Byzantine art.

The crappiest class I took was called "Mothers and Daughters" - a miserable course in feminist deconstruction of the mother-daughter relationship in literature. It was sick - in more ways than one.

 

[Zoom-Zoom]

Cross-Cultural Research on Urban Gangs. It was an anthropology class.

 

[Matt0751]

You guys are crazy. I took Intro to Acting.

They ask why did you enjoy it so much.

B/c it allowed me to release stress by acting like a kid, build confidence in public speaking, and forget about science for a few hours.

Plus its like playing "who's line is it anyway" all day

 

[tigress]

gosh y'all are more interesting than I am

my most unusual class was probably tai chi...not even that exciting! Although it was fairly amusing when the instructor kept talking about some guy zapping people with his chi that he could focus or something weird like that.

 

[LO281OK]

Political Terrorism - taught by a former CIA assistant deputy director

Espionage and Statecraft - ditto

Chinese 101 - to meet chicks

and

Teaching Chemistry - taught by the Chem dept. (not education psychos)

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Although it was fairly amusing when the instructor kept talking about some guy zapping people with his chi that he could focus or something weird like that.

Dim mok. The "death touch". A very interesting concept.....

 

[anystream]

wow, thats really cool.

I can't believe you were part of the male sexuality class that did these things:

"The course was suspended after it was reported that students had had an orgy at a party, taken photos of their genitals and gone to a strip club where an instructor joined in."

Sounds pretty crazy for a pre-medder.

fortunately or not, i didn't take that class. its just infamous at my school.

 

[odrade1]

Definitely not crazy, but sort of unique:

Philosophy of neuroscience, team-taught by the chairs of the neurobiology dept and the philosphy dept. It was great!

Epistemology seminar: the a priori
The a priori usually never gets its own lecture, much less its own class. This course would drive most pre-meds crazy; the whole class was about what we can know about the world without observing the world or doing any science. The answer: depending on who you ask, either a fair amount or not much at all! Maybe this class was crazy after all!

 

[DiverDoc]

Human Sex freshman year got an A DUH

 

[MollyMalone]

Definitely not crazy, but sort of unique:

Philosophy of neuroscience, team-taught by the chairs of the neurobiology dept and the philosphy dept. It was great!

Epistemology seminar: the a priori
The a priori usually never gets its own lecture, much less its own class. This course would drive most pre-meds crazy; the whole class was about what we can know about the world without observing the world or doing any science. The answer: depending on who you ask, either a fair amount or not much at all! Maybe this class was crazy after all!

Those both sound totally sweet. I'm jealous!

 

[Pewl]

social psych is fun

 

[frostynorthwind]

Chinese 104: Elementary Chinese I... i'm a glutton for punishment
Bassoon 305: Bassoon Performance ... comical and stressful considering i'm not a bassoon major
German 444: German Conversation for Everyday Use... reading & discussing German newspapers and magazines was a blast but had no application to my concentration

 

[45408]

one popular class at my school is "Italians in the Mafia"

I took weightlifting and choir (I LOVED choir)

 

[motherofalldrs]

Soviet Fiction after 1917. Pretty depressing with everyone getting dragged off to a gulag. Stylistic descriptions of the pervading cold and dry bread and fetid water.

 

[Thundrstorm]

An interdepartmental course on morality, taught by a philosophy prof and a neuroscience prof. Possibly my favorite class in college; it was just really cool to discuss morality from differnet viewpoints; we had a lot of great debates in that class.

Even though I didn't take it, my school offered a class on witchcraft and magic in literature, which everyone seemed to like.

 

[Pretty POHA]

I took an Assertiveness class. Lame. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't need ANY assistance with being assertive... I borderline aggressive most of the time...
But it was good for me to go in and show the rest of the class what it's like to be an assertive woman.

Other classes like it: Self-Esteem; Time Management; & Stress Management.

The Self-Esteem class was actually very enlightening!!!

 

[Pepper1o1]

I took History of Israeli Film. A seminar with 15 people, and me the only Non-Jew (Catholic!). It was awesome, haha.

Oh! And the Literature of Gastronomy. An Italian class, taught in English, in which we read Italian books that included food as main parts of books, and then cooked a lot

 

[tulane06]

Czech Language