Classes

[brigdh]

This is my last quarter! It's so nostalgic except, no, not really. It's hard to be particularly sentimental about taking classes when I'll start again in the fall.

Art 205: Beginning Drawing. An introduction to basic freehand drawing, exploration of a range of drawing methods, media, concepts; emphasis on drawing from observation.

I've wanted to take this class since I got here, but it's ten hours a week in the classroom, and I've never been able to make it fit in my schedule. Good thing I don't actually have anything I need to take this quarter, and can therefore play whatever games with the classes I feel like.

English 576.03: Aesthetics And Ethics. While for centuries in the West the integral relation of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful has been assumed to be the basis for all meaning in life, within the modern age these states have appeared to have split apart, so that some consider aesthetic judgment (considerations of taste and beauty) to have little or nothing to do with ethical judgment (considerations of moral rightness), and vice versa. In this class we will examine whether this disconnection is substantial or merely apparent. We will ask what the relation of aesthetics and ethics is to one another in the way we evaluate works of literature. Can a work of art be aesthetically pleasing while morally repulsive or vacuous? Can a work of art be morally uplifting while aesthetically vapid? How do our moral presuppositions play a role in forming aesthetic judgment? Can great works of art or literature have the power to improve our moral and social consciousness, and if so, can there be works that do the opposite, and have a negative or destructive impact upon people? We will read theories of both aesthetics and ethics from past philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, as well as contemporary thinkers such as Wayne Booth, Noel Carroll, and Martha Nussbaum. To test out theories we will end the course by examining select literary works and a film.

But for my last class, I have a dilemma. I usually registrar for more classes than I actually plan on taking, and then drop the least interesting ones because I enjoy abusing my privileges as an early registrar, yes I do. But I can't decide which of these classes I want to drop; I like them equally. Well, more truthfully, I don't dislike either of them more than the other.

Anthropology 610: Ethnobotany. Introduction to the anthropological study of human interactions with the plant world.
Assignments: Midterm, Final, and research paper with presentation.
Other thoughts: Cheaper books than the other class, but a slightly flaky, boring professor. Probably not enough so to be a problem, though. There's a guy in this class who's in Speaker's Bureau with me, so I'd have someone to talk to, but on the other hand, I don't particularly like him, so I doubt I will talk to him. I'd say I mind being so antisocial all the time, but really, I entertain myself far more than most people I meet, so it's better for everyone like this. Cute-girl-I-had-one-class-with-before is also in this, and sat next to me and said hi.

Anthropology 640.01: Primate Behavior. A broad survey of living primates, major taxanomic groups within the order, diet, group living, mating strategies, predation, intelligence.
Assignments: Midterm, final, and research paper with presentation. Yes, exactly the same, because they don't want to make this decision easy on me.
Other thoughts: More expensive books, but much more interesting and funny professor. Cute-girl is randomly also in this class, but she didn't sit next to me.

[Poll #701231]



ETA: radiofreebanri has new scans up!

Comments

[weirdquark]

I've always tried to take the classes that interest me most, but on all other things being equal? Take the more interesting professor. It's advice my dad always gave me, and really? I think he's right.

(Also? Monkeymonkeymonkey!)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

You're probably right; an interesting professor can make up for a lot of other faults.

(Hee! Cute monkeys are the bonus of taking that class.)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hey, not my fault! I was already sitting down when she came in- I didn't know she was going to be in the second class, too.

Man, if she reads comics though, she'll get to be super-cool-cute-girl.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Alright, alright. Just for you, I will find some way to flirt with the cute girl. The things I suffer!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Of course! You can be the maid of honor at our fabulous wedding, even.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I suppose, she's fine, I haven't seen her in a while...

The more important news is that the class which you all told me to take, and which I therefore did take, has a midterm tomorrow, and I am totally not studying. Like a good student. Yes.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee! But no worries: talking with you is WAY MORE FUN than studying, believe me. I have no regrets!

*laughs* Camp is the best distraction from work ever.

[clari-clyde.livejournal.com]

640.01 might have more expensve books but what overcomes that for me is that the professor is insteresting and there’s a cute crush even if she doesn’t sit next to you. So it’s a fun class and you just might be able to impress her some way? At least you’ll have chances to instead of no chance at all by not being in a class with her.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

But the crush is in both classes! Otherwise I might have indeed succumbed and taken the one with her. But I think I will take the 640.01, because all other things being equal, I do like the professor more.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd taken even just one of those impractical-but-I've-always-want-to classes. But I always went with extra Latin instead. Which is equally impractical only on the other end of the fun spectrum. *facepalm*

Oohh, Aesthetics And Ethics looks shiny. Or rather I love aesthetics in almost any form. (Ethics? not so much.)

Cute-girl is not a selling point to be lightly pushed aside. *g* And boring professors make me want to stab my ears out with a long, point-y forks sooner or later, everytime. You, however, may be more zen.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I take them all the time. It's the advantage of having a major with few requirements. Though I've always put my efforts into avoiding Latin instead of taking it.

It's fun. I think it'll be my favorite class this quarter; the professor's very cool.

I can deal with boring professors much better than flaky ones or, how to put it, unchallenging ones. Whenever I get stuck in a class that where the teaching methods is 'treat the students as though they were small, retarded, trained monkeys', I am filled with rage. It's really not a pretty sight.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

Random question - what's with the really random numbers? Like 576.03? What does that mean? Why .03? o.o

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

It's just how they label courses in the US. 100-level classes are nearly always introductions, 200/300 are more specific but still easy, 400/500 are harder and yet more intense, 600 straddles the border between undergraduate and graduate- you're likely to have students from both groups in the class- and anything above (it only goes up to the 800s, I think), is for graduate students.

The decimals are for specific sub-topics. So 576 is all the English critical theory classes, but 576.01 might be theory in film, 576.02 might be theory in postmodern lit (I don't know what they actually are, I'm making things up), and 576.03 is theory in regards to aesthetic and ethics.

I don't know why things are set up this way; it's just how I've always seen it. How do they do it over there?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Really? My bad! Some other colleges I've taken classes with did the same thing, so I thought it was universal. How do you guys do it?

I'm so interested in this now. I hadn't realized that there were different ways to do it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I've taken several 300 and 400 level classes, and they're no easier or harder than most of my intros

Yeah, I've found that a lot, too. I'm not sure why; maybe because the material is more interesting, or because- on average- they tend to have fewer students in them than 100-level classes, but I haven't found them any harder either.

We don't tie them to freshman/sophomore/etc very much. It's more just how in-depth or specialized the topic is.

But it's really neat to see how different schools use the system!

[kessie.livejournal.com]

Take the one with the more interesting professor (best advice I was ever given), and this time sit next to the cute girl. :D Problem solved!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. I knew I could count on my flist to figure things out!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone with an MA in Anthro - interesting professor, all the way. It makes all the difference in the world. I've even had the experience of taking several classes from one professor, and the one class she admitted was her first love (physical anthropology) was the most interesting, exciting, and easy class of the bunch.

Just pray you never have to read Marvin Harris' The Rise of Anthropological Theory. It's the driest, wordiest, dullest textbook I know, compounded by the fact that I know the man can write intelligibly, because I've read his other books! In it, he never uses one word when six will do, and he never uses less than three syllables in a word if he can possibly get away with it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I've taken Anthro Theory and Arch Theory already, and have managed to avoid that book so far (although it was in favor of reading a bunch of articles by guys like Darwin and Marx, so I'm not sure Harris could be much worse). I'll have to cross my fingers and hope it doesn't come up in the future.

[rans-curse.livejournal.com]

Interesting definitely outweighs the cost. Interesting outweighs damn near any cost, unless it's like an arm and a leg and maybe the hand and foot, too. o.o

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. That does seem to be the popular opinion.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Dude. Monkeys.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Today's class might possibly have involved many photos of Aye-ayes and Bushbabies and other things that make me squee and wonder who I would have to bribe to get one for a pet.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

See? How could you possibly drop that?

Reposted to fix the html

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Look (http://www.primates.com/primate/tarsier.jpg)
at (http://www.pointless0.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/tarsiers.jpg)
them (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/~nhi708/classify/animalia/chordata/mammalia/primates/loris.jpg)!

It is so not fair that I can't have one of my own.

Re: Reposted to fix the html

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

::ded from cute::