<p>Thirding POLI 212 w/ Ambler. It’s the reason I was a POLI major.</p>
<p>Also, POLI 462, Comparative Public Policy, also with Ambler. It’s the reason my POLI major was worthwhile. We met at his house every Tuesday night for two or three hours to discuss whatever was the public policy of the week —*healthcare, fiscal, educational, etc. We finished the class with a large research project and paper, and everyone presented their research to the class. It was a fantastic capstone to the major, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to take it, whether or not you’re a POLI major (though I’m not sure whether he accepts non-majors into the class).</p>
<p>Anything with Douglas Brinkley. He’s a famous professor who also happens to be a great educator. His classes are much more “storytime with Dougie B.,” and you come out with such an excitement for whatever topic it is. I took two classes with him, and they were each completely different experiences (though there’s not much difference between the presidents and cold war classes). I took HIST 291, 20th Century American Presidents, which is just an outstanding lecture course, and I took HIST 425, American Conservation Movement, which could be renamed “The Douglas Brinkley Environmental Guest Lecture Series.” The first few weeks were spend on background history, starting with Teddy Roosevelt and the National Parks Service, and then after that we had a guest speaker each week from a different grassroots conservation campaign. It was really interesting to hear from these people who are making the biggest difference in the conservation movement today. That’s what Brinkley is good at — making you excited about whatever he’s excited about.</p>
<p>ENGL 342, Victorian Fiction with Dr. Michie. Dr. Michie is the chair of the English department, and is an expert in Victorian fiction. This was the best theory class I took in the English department, and theory wasn’t even really a stated part of the curriculum. It was so well-taught that we picked up literary theory without really thinking about it, and we were able to apply it to all of the texts we read that semester. The booklist is fun if you have the time to read everything —*Bleak House and Middlemarch both came at a rather busy time in the semester to be reading 800-page novels — and you come out with an understanding of the tropes that would influence the next century’s worth of fiction.</p>
<p>ENGL 233, American Fiction 1950–present with Dr. Doody. I don’t think this course has been offered since my sophomore year, since Dr. Doody was on sabbatical this year and seems to vary a lot the courses he teaches. So really, just take any course with Dr. Doody that’s not ENGL 200 or 300. All of his courses have outstanding booklists (Morrison, Roth, Chabon, Updike, etc. in American; Proust, Flaubert, etc. in European), and he really revels in the class discussions. He’s a bit full of his own academic prowess, but it does not come at the expense of respect for your own intellectualism. He takes a genuine interest in the success of his students — he wrote one of my grad school recommendations.</p>
<p>Any creative writing course. I took Personal Essay, but the professor I took it from was a temporary hire, so I can’t really recommend a specific course. Don’t worry too much about the professor, because I’ve never seen a Rice student take a creative writing course and not love it. I don’t care what your major is — you will benefit from a creative writing course, and especially a personal nonfiction one. I learned a great deal about myself from the two personal essays I wrote, and the basic concepts (trust as a basic principle of nonfiction writing, for example) are something I can carry to all of my writing.</p>