What is the most interesting class you have ever taken?
Submitted by Melissa.
I used to have a lot of complaints about my undergraduate education. Namely, that pursuing an English degree didn't really prepare me for the working world, as much as I tried to make it happen. I didn't feel like the department there was very supportive of my endeavors. (I once attended a graduate school information session, and all they talked about were M.A. programs... when I was thinking more along the lines of something, erm, professional. No offense.)
But liberal arts education does help to teach you how to think, and how to write down those thoughts once you've thought them out a little more. I once took an entire class on Friedrich Nietzsche. It was a small class and there was a lot of discussion. I frequently felt like I was in over my head, but in a good way. We read House of Games and The Man In High Castle, in addition to the philosopher's collected works. My two main papers were on the Nietzsche's treatment of the feminine, and his theory of the eternal return. I got really high marks on the papers, but more than that, I feel like I learned how to come up with an original idea and turn it into something beautiful on paper. When I go back and read them I still feel that. I still feel like in a small way the readings and discussions we did then had an overall effect on my philosophy of life; yeah God is dead and all that. But also that life is art. To be is to do. To do is to be. Do be do be do.
One of my favorite memories of college actually, is going over to the professor's house to watch the Mamet movie with my classmates. It was strangely intimate to be in his home, having off-campus conversation with him and his wife, who was also a prof (English too, feminism and the Bible stuff). We drank wine and ate strawberry rhubarb pie. It was late spring, and I was six credits away from graduation. I know I didn't think so at the time, but living the life of the mind was pretty good.
