Easiest Class at U-M?

Phil 180, you learn the names of some argument forms and how to calculate simple probability. Everything is online. You shouldn't have to put in more than 20 minutes a week (attending lectures included) to get an A.

Since I double posted here's a shout out to the Water and Society minicourse. I went to precisely one class, studied the notes for a few hours before the exam and got an A.

One vote for Anthro 101

AOSS 101....because not only was it easy, but you also could say you're taking rocket science.

CAAS 200, it was so easy I spent probably 20 minutes studying the entire semester. Open notes tests and exam questions provided beforehand.

Engin 110 was really easy. You just show up to class and do some easy homework.

Don't remember the #, since it was 25 years ago! But my girlfriend (now wife) took it to get her last science credit.

I wrote the book on easy classes (truly, I wrote a guide at one point).

Among others, I took:

-Exploring your Major
-Exploring Ann Arbor
-Lord of the Rings
-Casino Gambling
-Ice Ages Past and Present
-Dinosaurs
-Continents Adrift
-Botany
-Roman Sports
-Waves and Beaches
-Philosophy of Movies
-Fossils
-Archaelogical Frauds (three weeks on aliens/UFOs. Seriously.)

Of those, Exploring your Major and Exploring Ann Arbor were probably the easiest (thank you Lloyd Hall Scholars Program). The respective finals for these courses involved telling the class what major we were interested in, and walking to Stucci's for ice cream.

I am not sure if they still have the class, but Russia Today was a blast, and the easiest A out there. It also qualified for the Race or Ethnicity requirement (not sure if they still have that requirement). My buddy and I used to take turns going. Even though his notes consisted mostly of scribbles with the pen sliding off the paper, only to be blurred by the drool from him asleep face down on the notebook, we still both aced it. If you actually listened to the lecture, it was pretty cool, but.....I had better things to do.

Ahh, the good times.

go to class, sit on facebook (bc it's laptop based), get an A

and for any ME's, ME 311 was so so easy

I took Comp Lit 240, and you got to pick your own grade (!!) Seriously, I showed up to the first class and like none others, and got a 4.0. I know people who didn't write any papers and still got the 4.0. Ridiculous.

If you have read your Michigan Football textbooks as faithfully as you read MGoBlog, then History of College Athletics with John U Bacon is a walk in the park. I don't think I really learned anything at all in the class, and when we were asked to write a paper I walked down to Yost and interviewed the hockey coaches. Looked forward to going to every single class.

Fundamentals of Math or whatever it was MA131 my only math credit needed for my PoliSci Comm double major. I read Vonnegut the whole time and smashed it with an A+. AP calc as a senior in HS Math fundamentals for my college requirement. Beautiful.

stupid internet.

With Bruce Confroth is really easy. You have to put with some his BS in regards to not clearly announcing quiz dates, but it's still really easy

Psych 111 and Anthro 101

was the easiest I took. 1 credit, 6 weeks. Met in the Angell Hall planetarium. Great class.

I don't remember exactly what, but my friends in the B school told me about this class in the Education dept. where you basically just edit an education blog each week and answer some kids' questions. The funny thing about it though was that apparently a bunch of students end up using it to flame one another because no one really reads it anyway. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

I took a Psych class called 110 (not the general 111). Marquise Walker was in the class for about 5 days, and it was probably the easiest class I have ever taken.

My two or three easiest so far are Philosopy 202, Econ 101 and General chemistry...wow I don't really like being an engineer. Econ 370 is also pretty easy

Astronomy 101 was a breeze. I added the class 2 weeks into my semester, showed up for my first class only to find it taking a quiz. I took the quiz cold and got an 85%. It got better from there.

1 credit science class. Show up day 1, pick up syllabus, return for final. Have no idea what actually happened in class. If he had changed the date of the final I would have been effed.

Senior year, I also took a film class with a title close to "Modern Horror Films and the Teen Sex Farce". Class essentially divided the semester into two parts, horror and comedy. Watch 1 movie a week at the Michigan Theatre and then write paper on a horror film and a paper on a Teen Sex Farce. The film list included:

The Birds, Alien, Videodrome, the Brood, Porkys, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Animal House, Midnight Summers Wet Dream, MASH, etc.

I don't remember the number, but the class was called "Politics and Culture of the 60s" and was crosslisted in about a dozen different areas.

Anyway, we'd sit in lecture and watch movies, TV shows, and stuff about the 60s (I seem to remember watching some stuff that I see on VH1 Classic now).

Some reading, but not really that much. A couple of papers, but nothing bad.

JeffB

Do they have this class still? I think it was something like History 286. It was an easy A+ and sure picked up the moral and GPA.

307 or something ... "Conversation Practice" ... 1 CR

Very easy and my instructor was an old-school German metalhead from the 80's. We literally just talked, not even about anything topical.

When I took Mind, Matter, and Machines taught by Eric Lormand there was no attendance, no papers, and no tests. We were "graded" on two 5-minute in class presentations at recitation. Honestly, I have no idea why I got an A- (as opposed to an A, or even a C), but no class I've ever heard of required less effort.

20th century physics (I think it was Phys 109 or something) was also ridiculously easy. 70% of the students were people looking to kill their quantitative reasoning requirement, so if you can do math, you were way ahead of the curve.

Both classes were really interesting, too.

I'd second the earlier vote for Psychology peer counseling. You literally sit in a room and talk about how to give advice, then give said advice to people.

The easiest "real" class I took was Sports and Society. There were no tests. Your grade was based on a term paper that you could rewrite as many times as you wanted. So you'd turn it in, get a B, then rewrite it from there and get an A-, etc. If you did the paper at the beginning of the semester, you could just keep reworking it with the prof. grading it until you get an A.

I had a class named "Academic Paradox" that was cross-referenced in three different departments. It basically showed a bunch of facts and data saying that you are wasting your time by going to University of Michigan over an easier school, because outcomes weren't very different. The entire course grade was two one-page papers and an easy final exam.

Actually a very interesting class though, I'm glad I decided to take it.

Intro to Oceanography. The course material wasn't all that easy, but the professor would walk into lecture and look around, and if the lecture hall looked somewhat empty she would have the students pass around a sheet and write down their name and student ID for extra credit points. As this happened approximately 2 out of every 3 lectures for the semester, I got an A+ despite never getting an A on a test. Just goes to show that showing up is sometimes all that matters.

No contest.

I went to the prof's office hours a third of the way through the course to make sure I hadn't missed any assignments. The only thing we had done up to that point was a one page paper on why you weren't a racist and that wasn't graded.

As it turned out, the only material that was graded was the midterm and the final. There was a lot of reading, but I found it to be interesting.

Of course, I took this class in 1996 so don't get POed at me if things have changed.

Apparently no one here needed a 3 credit cross discipline elective because no one has mentioned IOE 301. Quite possible the easiest class I've ever had, and that includes grade school!

It was so easy that many of us had an actual contest going to see who could spend the least amount of time on the class and still get an A. I didn't win and I totaled to 4.5 hours including exams. Final exam, 35 minutes in, walked down to the front, handed in the exam, and commented to the TA: "I aced this". Some were not amused.

IIRC, someone managed to only put in 3 hours total, all semester and ended up with an A.

Some of this stuff is depressing! Not to sound like a dick, but I can't believe some of the crap that passes for higher education. I've had my own stupid fluff class experiences myself. Don't get me wrong: most, if not all colleges, probably have their share of joke courses. It's sad.

The year was 1999; first semester freshman year. Sounded kind of interesting and a couple of kids I knew mentioned it. Went for syllabus day and day two; a "documentary" about big foot was shown. I skipped for a few weeks and my friends mentioned that the midterm was the next day. I skimmed the little text and then sweated. The midterm was was 50 true/false and essay questions about the scientific method. I got 100%, the only one of my collegiate career.

I told all my friends to take it the next semester. The best any of them did was a straight B. They must have ratcheted it up a notch.

Taught by Duderstadt. First day of class, tells everyone if they're looking for a challenge, they should probably drop his class. Went to one class, got an "A". He does not take attendance. Four short assignments. as long as they are handed in, done deal. If he still does this class, highly recommend.

Oceanography. You only need a 50 to pass!

Frauds in Archeology, forget the number though. Super easy, and for bonus points: actually interesting AND fulfilled the R&E requirement.