Williams College in the gorgeous Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts. |
Back in April of 2009 before most of you had even heard of My Porch, I posted something that I still find fascinating. John and I had been on a road trip where we talked about how much fun it would be to spend a semester studying whatever we wanted to. A kind of academic fantasy camp. No real worries about grades or anything stressful, just the chance to learn about something you never had time for in school.
(I am aware that more than a few of you are still in the halls of the academy, so this may be less interesting to you…but you still may want to play along)
Q: If you could spend a semester studying anything you wanted, what kind of classes would you take?
Rules:
1. Assume everything else in your life is manageable (e.g, your
family isn’t neglected, bills are paid, you don’t have to work, etc.)2. Choose classes that you would want to take just for the fun of taking them. That
is, stay away from stuff that would get you a promotion at work or help you to
finish a degree or something like that. This is your chance to explore anything
you want.3. Extra points for being specific.4. Double extra points for telling me where you would want to spend your semester.
Amherst College, also in Massachusetts.
A: If I had to narrow it down to one semester, this would be my course schedule:
This was my list in 2009.
- Survey/History of British Lit
- History of Victorian and Edwardian England
- Infrastructure 101 (A more in-depth, much smarter version of all those Discovery channel shows about utilities and transportation and stuff like that.) This class includes a two week “field trip” to learn about European passenger rail infrastructure.
- Photography
- Choir
As to where, I am tempted to say Cornell because it is a nice campus in a beautiful setting and is
kind of isolated. Cozy and big at the same time. Or some other similar campus in the Northeast.
Those are all still interesting to me, but I have some other things that have me captivated at the moment. My course list today would look something like this:
- Survey of American History from 1850 to 1900 – not generally a period in history I am naturally drawn to, but it would dovetail really nicely with what I am researching at work these days–which is fascinating–and will be blogged about in the near future.
- A research methods class. I have had one or two of these in past, but I could use a refresher as an adult who is actually paying attention.
- I would still do the Infrastructure class I mention above.
- Geometry – I was terrible at it in high school–I felt confused my whole sophomore year in Mr. Varty’s class. And I generally disliked math, but for some reason this has been interesting to me lately. I am not sure it would fill a whole semester as an adult, so maybe I would throw in an Algebra refresher course as well.
- Some kind of art class–like the kind we had in junior high which included everything from drawing to woodblock carving to pottery to painting.
- Choir
- And I still think I would do the survey of British Lit. Kind of tempted to narrow it down, but I think I would still like to take in the whole sweep of British Lit to put my reading into a broader context and framework.
As for place, I would still tend to say somewhere like Cornell. Not only is it beautiful, but I like how isolated it is relative to the the hustle and bustle of downstate New York. Even though it is set overlooking the town of Ithaca, the overall feeling is still one of a retreat. I also think I would want a larger school like Cornell, or at least one with a big research library that might be harder to find at a small school. And oddly, as much as I love places like Cambridge and Oxford, I see myself doing this at an American university.
I got to spend two lovely, interesting years here at Cornell. I could easily do another semester. |
Now tell me, what would you do? Go ahead, click the comment button…
Maybe you would prefer Berkeley and its proximity to San Francisco. |