Favorite Undergrad Course?
The "us vs we" thread, as well as the Amy Winehouse discussion got me reminiscing about my time as a student in Ann Arbor.
Drugs of Abuse (Psych 436) was brought up, and let me tell you, that was the hardest course for me for whatever reason. It was worse than Orgo, worse than P Chem, it was just awful. Yet, I loved the content and have no regrets about loading up on the hardest classes I could take within my concentration (BioPsych/BBCS).
Having said all that, my favorite course was Sleep Neurobiology, or Psych 520, I believe. This was my first experience with rotating lecturers, as we had about 15 different speakers come in and address the class, including various big names at UMHS and the Chairs of Psychiatry and Psychology, and many visiting professors from other universities! It resonated with me strongly because, well, everybody sleeps (and poops), and I used to sleep walk and still do snore and talk in my sleep. I wish I had taken the course my freshmen year so I could have learned the pros and cons of all-nighters and daytime napping.
If all works out, I hope to get my MD and be involved in clinical sleep research.
That's my story, what's yours?
My favorite was Art History. It was cool to see some of the pre-historic porn our forefathers were making in their spare time. No joke.
I took the introductory Art History course from the Renaissance to the 20th century. Really interesting stuff. (The exams weren't too tough either - if you could defend what you wrote about each painting in the bluebook, they'd let it go.)
actually used it more than most other classes from UNDERGRAD i.e. impressing the ladies while traveling through Europe. "Ah, ... Caravaggios' use of of light was revolutonary" got me a lot of action
Philosophy of Law and any econ class with Professor Adams
I'm not going to try and impress other readers and say Organic Chem or Economics. My favorite class was Advanced Swimming 103. Of the 25 students in the class, only 4 were men, the rest were gorgeous woman in bikini's or at least decent if you were drunk (sorry if I sound shallow) Water volleyball and sitting in the hot tub was the typical day in that class. Best Ever.
And let them wear bikinis?! That should be a prerequisite.
I really enjoyed orgo and Econ 401. I only got a B in orgo but I still really enjoyed it.
The thing about Orgo is that while I only got a B/B+ (Orgo 1/2 respectively), I retained virtually everything I learned. When MCAT class rolled around I got about 95% of the Orgo-related questions right. Even when you're 60 years old you'll remember the right-hand rule and what enantiomers are and what a methyl shift is, ya know?
Stupid enantiomers only being different at one stupid chiral carbon...GRRRR!!!!!11!!!!11!
In that swimming class.
Psych 418- Psychology of Spiritual Development with Richard Mann.... not even a psych course really. This was hands down the most amazing course I have ever taken or would expect to take in the future.
Psych 418 with Professor Mann was the only class I could ever imagine taking that actually changed my life in a positive way. If you can take it spring term. He is an emeritus professor and recently they tried to let him go but due to student response they have kept him on board.
Hands down the best class I took at Michigan and I'm still in touch with the professor.
I loved all Ralph Williams' classes too but he's gone so...
We collected over 100 letters and several pieces of art and photography inspired by the class and assembled it into a binder. We started with the Provost and ended up going all the way to Mary Sue before being passed all the way back down to the Provost. We eventually got our request granted, but seeing behind the scenes of the university budgeting process was not pretty. kudos to Provost Sullivan for finding the money to keep the Mann around.
Best:
Psych 351 (i think) - It was a freshman semenar that met in cousins lobby. You got to chill on couches and talk about social issues(racism, GLBT, etc.). It was a 20 person class and as long as you did your weekly reading summary (which we were told could be on a napkin), didnt miss more than 1 class, and did the 2 group assignments (which you could redo for an auto A) you were garenteed an A in this class.
Worst:
One of my 400 level Econ classes that I took my last semester in college before graduating. I cant remember the number but it was one of those calc based ones. Personally I love the social economic classes and hate the heavy math ones. Our teacher had a heavy russian accent and class was a 3 hour lecture 3 days a week with a discussion another day. We sat in a lecture hall even though we had about 30 people. I could not understand the teacher. I eventually stopped going and got called out at the end of the semester for never showing. I ended up with a C+ but I didnt care as it was my last class of my Bachlors, I had my job already, and was starting my Masters right after in Accounting.
History 265 (?) - History of the University of Michigan
Great professors (Steneck's I think) and very fun/interesting material.
Significantly more difficult than I expected it to be, but worth the effort.
Latin turned out to be so much more than fulfilling a foreign language requirement. I ended up getting a BA and MA in the language, literature, history, art and archaeology. It was creatively taught by some of the most intelligent and personable people I've known. John D'Arms, Frank Copley, John Pedley, Gerda Seligson etc.were standouts!
I believe it was HIS 365. It was History of American Suburbia, and the class, professor, discussions, and ideas were awesome.
excellent class, i wrote my final paper on the drug war.
My all time favorite though is Psychology of Spritual Development with Dick Mann (Psych 418). That class forever changed my way of being. Prof Mann's Psychology and Consciuosness class was eye-opening as well.
was defnitely my favorite class as an undergrad by far. As a history major, it was refreshing to see a historian incorporate lots of new(ish) media clips into their lectures (the sopranos, bruce springsteen, and the wire...to name a few).
I highly recommend that any of you still at U of M take a Matt Lassiter class.
Best course I took at Michigan was Integrated Product Development (IPD) taught by Professor Lovejoy (yes, that really is his name).
It is a cross-disciplinary course that is part of the Tauber Institute for Global Operations (joint program between Ross and Industrial Engineering schools) where you work as part of a team to conduct market research, design, and literally manufacture a product (our year, it was after-market cupholders for cars). Then you do all the marketing around that product and compete against the other teams at a live tradeshow.
Very cool class and really helpful if you ever want to do anything with new product development.
Here is a link to it: http://www.tauber.umich.edu/News%20and%20Events/IPD/index.htm
History of College Athletics with John U. Bacon
American Revolution with David Hancock
Britain 1901-1939 with Kali Israel
Origins of Nazism with Ulrike Weckel
The Vietnam War and Iraq with Victor Lieberman
America and Middle Eastern Wars with Juan Cole
haters gotta hate,
but juan is way to full of himself and hancock was downright boring.
israel on the other hand gets suprisingly little credit; topic was meh but well put together course
I can definitely see both of your assessments about Cole and Hancock. To each his own, I guess. I know I've had a few professors that people liked and I couldn't stand.
Hancock might have been better in that class. If i rec all i think i had him for Hist 260.
Juan Cole's class still was good and i dont regret taking it, it jsut seemed every 5 minutes he was referencing how he could have prevented a war or his own experiences dealing with current Arab leaders.
From what I understand from other people who've had him, he doesn't like teaching broad survey courses so they end up kind of sucking. When he's teaching his upper-level more specialized courses he's awesome.
As the rare architecture student on the board, I really enjoyed Keith Mitnick's "Outlooks" course, a small seminar that looked at contemporary trends in art and literature and projected the effects of them on the future of architectural design. In essence, it was basically a weekly three hour night discussion about what creative people are doing with themselves these days. Very interesting info.
Shaun Jackson's "The Architecture of Objects" was also really useful. In essence we spent the semester designing and building different furniture projects, and getting tutorials on working with metal, wood, and plastics.
Modern Wars with David Fitzpatrick. The lectures were just entertaining as hell.
Easy: Protein Structure and Function
A supposedly fun course I'll never take again: Law & politics of sexuality
Clearsly, I did the peculiar CMB/PolSci duo.
you have bardwell for protein strucutre and function? that was a really fascinating course. he was a really approachable professor as well.
Best:
History 317: Europe in the Era of Total War (1845-1945)
Dr. Brian Porter taught this class, and it was superb. Actually looked forward to attending lecture each day. Cannot emphasize enough how well thought and structured his lectures were. He's no Ralph Williams (c'mon, no one is), but his delivery was outstanding as well.
Hardest:
Chemistry 451: Biochemistrry 1
There was a time when this class was well-known as the hardest on campus (also known as 2000). I'd say starting in week three, it was pretty commonplace to see my classmates cry. How do you say I really don't give a damn about teaching? Dr. Yocum. How do you say not only do I not care about teaching, but I actually hate my students? Dr. Coward.
Special prop's to Drs. Matthews and Ninfa for Chemistry 452 -- you guys almost sucked as bad as 451, but have to settle for bridesmaids on this one.
Worst:
Anthropology 101: Cultural Anthropology
Dr. Fricke repreated everything he said in lecture for greater effect. Dr. Fricke -- repreated everything he said in lecture -- for greater effect. I quickly realized that if he just said everything once, the class would only take half as long. Not to mention that lecture quickly felt like a Charlton Heston Bud Light commercial. Infuriating. Making matters worse, department chair Conrad Kotak has the balls to come out with a new edition of his intro anthro text every 18 months just to have swarms of undergrads buy it. Really Conrad, unless there's a new Amazonian tribe that's been discovered to have something unobserved and relating to culture, I think one edition per decade would suffice. There's a special place in hell for prof's who abuse there power for financial gain as you did. Hope you find your way there!
I took his history of Roman Catholocism Class and he is able to keep you interested in his lectures and actually motivated me to read some of the dense readings we had in class.
Great teacher and good class.
I shudder to ask what semesters you took Chem 451/452, because I might have been your TA - that's the same combination of professors I was assisting. And given it was my first year in grad school (and that organic was my specialty, not biochem), there's a non-zero chance that you hate me, too.
CLCIV 381: Witchcraft was taught by Derek Collins and was an awesome class. Was interesting and well taught
Any spells?
Kids study hard and soup up that extra curricular resume. That way you won't end up like me. MSU grad wishing I could be part of this conversation.
...the truth about NateVolk's mysterious past comes out...
Kudos to you for having the balls to admit that. I'm from Okemos so I have a bit of Spartan in me by default. Fortunately I "soup'ed up" on the extra stuff. You're welcome here anytime my friend.
"Favorite Undergrad Courses", not favorite Michigan undergrad courses, so you could comment on what classes you liked at MSU. You know, assuming they hold any classes up there.
My favorite actually was one of the first classes i took, a freshmen seminar Phil 196: Michigan a moral institution? by Gary Krenz who was an Assistant to MSC, we basically just talked about what was the point of college and how various entities such as the hospital and athletic departments were linked. One of the days MSC came in and we got to ask her q's about Michigan doing contervisial or stupid things. IT was great as a freshmen getting to know how the school worked and what you could pull on campus.
Worst was PS 340 by Tsbelis. Guy is brilliant but it just wasnt a good class. He seems to think actually teaching is beneath him and his whole class is read his books on game theory which make great claims but are written in Greek.
I want to take UM: A Moral Institution? in the future. I have already e-mailed Krenz to see if he would be teaching it in the future. It just seems fascinating to me.
I strongly reccomend it.
But seeing as your posting on here and it is the summer i kinda doubt that you are a freshmen. In which case even if it is offered it is nearly impossible to get into a freshmen seminar after your first year.
Not entirely sure what the policy on non freshemn in it. And Krenz wasn't actually a Prof so his schedule is very random so good luck!
History of Wars in the 20th Century hasn't been called out. That was regularly voted favorite class, and everyone loved the professor.
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<br>And I told you this was a good off-season topic. Board unity.
I already voted, but that might be my second choice. What the heck was that Professor's name? He was like a Green Beret from Veitnam or something, wasn't he?
When did you have the class? I took it in "91 or '92.
Any suggestions in the Political Science department for an incoming PoliSci student?
Polsci 101 (Political Theory) with Lavaque-Manty if he's still teaching it. This was one of the 2 humanties courses I needed for my engineering degree and I thought that the way he taught the class was really conducive to learning the material because the emphasis is on the discussion sections and with my section, at least, we had some really engaging, interesting discussions about the nature of human beings and how they choose to govern themselves.
I know a lot of political science majors who have not taken 101 and I think it's a travesty... it has shaped how I view human social behavior.
As an aero eng major, of course I has an affinity for math and science classes, buy my two favorite courses were a fluid dynamics and a combustion course with the late G. M. Faeth and philosophy of religion (which I immensely regret taking pass/fail).
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History of the Byzantine Empire.
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Class of 1971.
• Great Books - Donald Hall - '72 -- Hall was a visiting lecturer that semester, and many years later was designated Poet Laureate of the U.S. Great teacher.
• Intro to Physiology - Sherman - '74
• Baroque painting/sculpture - Bissel, Art History - early '80s
• 19th and 20th century European art - Isaacson, Art History - early '80s
• Design, College of Architecture & Urban Planning, '75/76 and '76/77
• International Politics, '71 or '72 - spent much time on the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Intaglio printmaking, School of Art, '79-81 - Cassara
• Illustration, School of Art, '81 - Hesseltine - great teacher
Worst class: Intro Calculus - never had a fucking clue what was going on and the lecturer had a thick German accent so I couldn't understand him half the time to boot. I got a good solid D on the first exam and I bailed, seeing the handwriting on the wall.
I would love to see a similar thread on RCMB or Eleven Warriors.