Easiest Class at U-M?

Submitted by Ellerbe is Yoda on

In honor of the topic below... what does everyone think about this topic? I'd say my easiest class was Marriage & the Family (it was a Soc class, I don't remember the number) or the 1 credit Geosci class I took Senior year to get to 120 credits.

mejunglechop

February 8th, 2010 at 8:06 PM ^

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.

mejunglechop

February 8th, 2010 at 8:40 PM ^

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.

mgolf4

February 8th, 2010 at 8:11 PM ^

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

Captain

February 8th, 2010 at 8:26 PM ^

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.

WolvinMaine

February 8th, 2010 at 8:25 PM ^

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.

osdihg

February 9th, 2010 at 12:45 AM ^

I took this class with prof. Makin in Spring '08. I guess it would pretty easy if I had taken it during a normal semester, but taking an upper level writing class with tons of reading during the spring is not my idea of fun. Spring in Ann Arbor is way too nice to waste on learning.

Sean@MATW

February 8th, 2010 at 8:43 PM ^

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.

umich1

February 8th, 2010 at 8:47 PM ^

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.

Bando Calrissian

February 9th, 2010 at 11:52 PM ^

I took both courses Bacon taught at Michigan, spent a lot of time in Office Hours, etc. etc.

If you didn't learn anything in that class, you obviously weren't paying attention. I'd read every book he assigned about Michigan sports (and a lot he didn't), and there was still TONS of stuff I didn't know.

lunchboxthegoat

February 8th, 2010 at 8:56 PM ^

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.

jwschultz

February 9th, 2010 at 1:04 AM ^

This is two threads in a row, dude. The internet is not that anomalous. Lock it up.

Anyway, I also noticed that you and the other double-poster in the "hardest class" thread both happen to have misleading avatars because his is the 'Overrated' O or something like that and you both made me think "ugh, fucking buckeye noobs."

Tim Waymen

February 8th, 2010 at 9:24 PM ^

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?

aaamichfan

February 8th, 2010 at 10:46 PM ^

I had that my last semester at UofM. It was easy, but I kinda decided I would rather take an easy class that I am somewhat interested in. None of the kids took it seriously, and it eventually became pretty obnoxious answering stupid questions on the internet.

Class was a good time though, because it was all last semester B-school students (besides myself). Met some pretty cool people.

bronxblue

February 8th, 2010 at 9:27 PM ^

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.

MGOSAIL

February 8th, 2010 at 9:44 PM ^

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

saveferris

February 8th, 2010 at 9:44 PM ^

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.

michigandadof4

February 8th, 2010 at 9:49 PM ^

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.

JeffB

February 8th, 2010 at 9:55 PM ^

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

Ernis

February 8th, 2010 at 10:01 PM ^

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.

ntclark

February 8th, 2010 at 10:02 PM ^

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.

MGoReid

February 8th, 2010 at 10:10 PM ^

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.

aaamichfan

February 8th, 2010 at 10:19 PM ^

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.

M Fanfare

February 8th, 2010 at 10:23 PM ^

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.

Bosch

February 8th, 2010 at 10:31 PM ^

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.

ats

February 8th, 2010 at 10:40 PM ^

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.

ShockFX

February 8th, 2010 at 11:55 PM ^

For the record, IOEs (at least 4 years ago) didn't take that class. IOE 301 is to IOE what NERS 211 is to NERS. Which means I can only imagine that IOE 301 involved crayons and coloring.

ats

February 9th, 2010 at 5:07 AM ^

about 90% of the class back then were IOE majors, mostly soph/junior, the other 10% we mostly seniors from other engineering disciplines pissing off the IOE majors by joking how easy it was while destroying their curve.

Tim Waymen

February 8th, 2010 at 11:19 PM ^

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.

Feat of Clay

February 15th, 2010 at 5:06 PM ^

Well, it sounds like in a lot of these courses were easy because the expectations were easy--not necessarily because the content was bogus. There might have been a lot to learn, and some students likely did get something out of it. But if it was easy to get a good grade doing less, some students elected to take that route.

I'd be more upset if I thought there were huge numbers of students filling their schedules with courses that expected little of them. But it sounds like these classes tend to be the fillers that students take to get some breathing room during a tough semester. Or on the homestretch to graduation. There's a lot of beer in Ann Arbor, and it's not going to drink itself you know.

MGauxBleu

February 8th, 2010 at 11:23 PM ^

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.

Glen Masons Hot Wife

February 8th, 2010 at 11:24 PM ^

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.