Useful/practical in my current career: 1. Developmental psychology. 2. Creative Nonfiction. I constantly repeat advice I got in that course to my students writing college essays.
Enriching: Japanese language. My whole understanding of human culture and how it shapes our experience changed when I started learning Japanese. It gave me a much deeper appreciation of everything Japanese that I still enjoy today (cuisine, decorative arts etc.).
It just occurred to me that I should look up my Creative Nonfiction professor and tell him that I use things he taught me every day.
Then I thought, you know, everybody in the thread should look up the professors whose courses we’re remembering and tell them about this conversation. I bet an email of this kind from a decades-ago student would make their day.
Actually, I’m friends on Facebook with my high school teacher - now retired - that taught the WARP class. I did recently tell him, on his birthday, how influential his class was on my life. Many other students have told him the same. He was a great teacher and used unique and fun methods in his class. I also took a Semantics class from him that I loved.
16 I TA'ed a class called Film and Propaganda! I loved it too.
For me, it was History and Memory. It was all about how we remember the past, and why we favor certain narratives over other narratives, and how/why some voices get silenced or erased throughout history. The concept seems somewhat obvious but it gave me a very good grasp on how to critically think about history and really, everything I read. As an English teacher I try to incorporate it in class all the time, like considering the Odyssey from Penelope’s perspective, or the public reception of Elie Wiesel’s Night when it first came out, etc etc.
Enriching- an art history course and a symphony course. Also enriching- all of the chemistry for my major and other STEM courses- so good to have that knowledge underlying my understanding. My fantasy and science fiction lit course so I can argue with my H that those genres are indeed literature.
Useful- since I went into medicine instead of chemistry those chemistry courses are mainly for an understanding (and it helped when I forgot a formula in biochemistry- I could easily derive it). Hated physics but calculus based physics made all of those memorized equations mean something- my favorite is that there is a simple calculus transformation that relates speed and acceleration- so logical. All of the many science courses I have taken. Even though I have forgotten so many facts it helps to know there are underlying principles that make sense. Understanding the WHY of so many things, way down to the subatomic level (magnetism comes to mind).
I sent a letter to the guy who taught the art history class about ten years after I took it. And I wrote something up for Eduard Sekler when he retired from Harvard. So I’m good!
Deductive logic was taught in high school geometry, but how many high school graduates realize that it is applicable to something other than high school geometry?
College students who take proof-based math courses would probably find the philosophy logic course redundant.
A college course on Fellini and Bergman. Taught me to think in new ways, informed the way I read literature and approach cultural studies, really turned on the lights for me.
a Milton course by Reynolds Price. It began with him reciting Lycidas and ended with the class giving him a standing ovation. Still gives me goosebumps to think about it. He wrote a poem about teaching and a student contacting him years later called Mid Term.
A business class which covered economics of running a business, how to do expense reports, depreciation etc, budgeting, how to read annual reports. Most useful class I ever took.
Psychology classes including child development. “Hands on” classes like shop. Most enriching was a series of writing classes with my writing group by an excellent author and mentor.
Useful and practical? Geography. I can make a good career out of that, and I have a passion for it. Enriching? Art History. That stuff was actually pretty interesting. I took Arts of Asia, since I know primarily about European art, which made the subject doubly interesting. Taking something I knew less about turned a meh GE requirement into something much better.
Demography - For some assignments and (at least) one exam, we were given a few key stats and asked to describe a population based on them. I loved having an academic outlet for my imagination and a forum in which to combine it with inductive reasoning. That, to me, was fun.
Advertising Design & Copywriting - This was a lot of fun: putting creativity, writing, and artwork together.
Botany 101: Plants & Man - Aside from the usual exams and assignments, we each had to do a project. I chose to brew a pale ale and a porter. Our professor was English, so I took (still take) pride in the fact that he gave me an A.
Abnormal Psych - I still diagnose people. hehe
The most useful?
Well, any class that was writing-intense was a useful class. A great many of my classes at UW featured subjective formats in assignments and exams, allowing us to give full throat to our ideas. Certainly the aforementioned Demography and Advertising classes allowed for free expression.
and…
I still bring up my apprenticeship as a brewer among family and friends – it is an old standby when I feel like I need to contribute something or move the conversation away from the dreaded politics or religion.
The most enriching and useful classes I took in college were my introductory ethics classes and upper-division ethics classes. These were in the philosophy department.
They showed me the value of good reasoning in making moral decisions, and most importantly, that there are such things as objective right and wrong, but that they are not predicated on religious considerations. Rather, they are based in secular facts about the world and the nature of humans and what they seek in living a good life.
Moral relativism is, contrary to what a lot of people might think, not a popular position in the community of moral philosophers. It’s pretty weak. Learning that and the reasoning behind their view of that position was an amazing experience.
An honorable mention should go to my psychology, history, biology, and astronomy classes. All really fun and informative classes taught by excellent professors.
Even today, when STEM is king of the hill career-wise, my parents believe there’s nothing more important than writing classes. I tend to agree. Although my HS English teacher is hardly the most impartial authority on the matter, she often tells the story of a college professor who told her “Jill,* you’ll never have to worry about finding a job. You can write”.
*Not her actual name
I’ve found this to be true in so many ways. Forget being smarter than your average bear; writing better than your average bear is what’s opened a tremendous number of doors for me, even as a HS student with few qualifications beyond a willingness to give any task my best effort. I’m not planning on majoring in English, but I’ll take every writing elective I can.
I’m not really at the stage where any of my courses would be “practical” (especially since I’ve changed my major so many times).
But I did take a Discrete Math class my first semester at college. Haven’t needed the information so far, but that was the first class I’d ever taken that gave me a visceral reaction, like, “Yes, this is what I want to do.” I tried to forget about that and take a bunch of courses in a completely different major (following the “Be premed, do an easy major” route), but I couldn’t, and everything else seemed dry by comparison.
It got to the point where I realized that everything I was doing was because of something or someone: my resume, my friends, my parents, my own doubts about what I was capable of. I asked myself, “How often do I actually do things that I’m really excited and passionate about?” And the answer to that question was “Never,” which is why I changed my major, joined some completely out-there clubs, and am slowly learning to truly, actually live. I think that’s the most valuable thing I’ve ever learned.
I found my journalism classes and working the late shift on the college newspaper taught me much more useful writing skills than my classes in the English department.