<p>So...I hate philosophy and I don't like discussions. I know, I know, I'm a terrible person. How much of a pain is this requirement going to be? Any courses that I should absolutely avoid? The law one looks interesting...</p>
<p>haha i’m a techie, so i’ll definitely be taking the “Humans and Machines” one.</p>
<p>hey, the “art of living” course is in the handbook, but it is not on the online ranking forms.</p>
<p>Weird, I didn’t notice that. Perhaps one or all of us should e-mail them?</p>
<p>Just because you’re a techie doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy Humans and Machines. Allow yourself to branch out with IHUM and try something new. I’m a math major, but I took all philosophy IHUM’s as a freshman and really enjoyed it. The fuzzier IHUM’s are taught with the understanding that a significant fraction of the students are techies who are not used to fuzzy subjects.</p>
<p>I particularly recommend Truth and Morality; the profs are the best. They’ll have you actually looking forward to IHUM lecture.</p>
<p>My S did not enjoy Humans and Machines, which he took first quarter this year. It wasn’t “techie” at all, and he actively disliked everything about it. A quote from my S: </p>
<p>Our coursework consists of watching crappy sci-fi movies, and every lecture basically goes “Hmmm, what’s a human? What’s a machine? It depends…”</p>
<p>One time we had to see a five minute puppet show where some guy messed with a crow and got attacked by a demon. The head puppeteer did a half hour Q & A where she just mumbled and said that the whole point was “don’t mess with crows.”</p>
<p>He said that they watched a video about lesbian robots with Enya music several times. Not his cup of tea.</p>
<p>On the other hand, he has LOVED his second and third quarters of IHUM, Ancient Empires. They are his favorite courses so far at Stanford.</p>
<p>Do a search for IHUM and you will come up with other threads about this topic.</p>
<p>I’m glad this topic popped up! Does anyone know which courses are supposed to be amazing and which are not as wonderful?</p>
<p>@SlySi
@gladmom</p>
<p>ok, thanks for the heads up. on second thought, Truth and Morality does sound really interesting. Even though i may be a techie, i enjoy philosophy and philosophical discussion. I’m liking the look of Philosophical Perspectives on Science, too, for winter and spring. Anyone know anything about that?</p>
<p>you will all soon find that ihum is a pain in the butt. The best advice i can give for picking classes for it is to look at the required readings. Check them out and see if they seem interesting. The course descriptions tend to let people down when they actually take the course.</p>
<p>That being said, I took Journeys my fall quarter and it was a pretty great course in terms of ihum. I don’t think theres as much reading as some of the other ihums, but the reading you do have is pretty good. definitely would recommend it.</p>
<p>I decided not to go to Stanford, but when I was considering it, I called the Ihum office and she basically said that they have some event in which you get to see the options for the 2 final quarters and you just choose. They’re not very practical but she basically said that they’re required and that everyone has to do it, so think of it that way.</p>
<p>Haha, the general interaction on Humans and Machines:</p>
<p>Person 1: Which IHUM are you in?
Person 2: Humans and Machines
Person 1: oh…
Person 2: Yeah, I thought it’d be techy…</p>
<p>You’re not going to get techy with any IHUM, but I’d say the closest thing to techy is Humans and Machines (but still not techy). The students in that class don’t have a final (just a project), and it seems less work-intensive than other IHUMs.</p>
<p>Agreed with peachiepizzazz; looking at reading lists is a pretty good way to get a feel for what the course is really about.</p>
<p>But IHUM doesn’t have to be a pain. If you get one that you kind of like, and if you have a good section, it can actually be a lot of fun. I can’t stress enough the importance of a good section. Unfortunately, the quality of your section depends both on the TF and the other students, neither of which you have much control over. So you’ll have to hope you luck out.</p>