A Full Courseload

There’s been some interest expressed in what kind of things I’ve been doing at school lately. Last year, I bit off a lot more than I could chew, so I was generally miserable. I was in five really difficult classes each term, and was sad. This year, I’ve changed my major, hopefully for the last time, and taken some classes that I like much more. The only nice thing about my really tough year was that I got all the awful required courses out of the way, and now I can take fun courses!

First up, there’s Listening to Classical Music. Yep. It’s exactly what it sounds like. For three hours, I sit in a lecture hall and listen to classical music. In theory, it sounds awesome, right? Wrong. It’s my least favorite of all of my classes. The music portion is fantastic. The bad part is the professor. He is awkward, long-winded, and a little too rigid to be a musician. He also tends to be a little heartless when it comes to the students. The time in between songs tends to be too long, and filled with his awkward stories about his life that come off like he’s bragging. “Here’s Piazza San Marco, but I know you haven’t been there.” I would drop this one, but I know that I will get an A in it.

Next is Abnormal Psychology. I like this class because it involves a lot of discussion. I took introductory psych as a freshman, but didn’t really enjoy it. The only section I did like was the abnormal portion. That was enough to get me to take this, I suppose. We do a lot of learning about different disorders and treatment options, and get to talk about it a ton. The prof is clever, funny, and really cares about the students and our opinions. The only thing I don’t like about this one is that the room it’s in is nearly vertical, in the climb a ladder to your seat sense. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but not much of one. Seriously.

I’m also in Parasitology. I also love this one, but in a weird way. This class is gross. We spend the whole time discussing diseases in humans caused by parasites. Then the professor shows us some pictures. Eek. The photos of people suffering from these ailments are disturbing at best. It’s actually good not to eat before class. It’s still fascinating though. I kind of want to do Doctors Without Borders or something similar someday, and these are the sort of things that I would be working with if I did that, so I think it’s really useful, and I’m learning so much. The professor is a lovely lady, obviously passionate about her parasites. The one downside is that she’s from Russia, so her English is sometimes a little on the rougher side. He makes up for it though with her jokes and stories.

In Molecular Evolution, we don’t learn much about evolutionary theory. The class is more about statistics and math. I chose this class because of the professor. He taught a chunk of my second year genetics course and I liked his teaching style a lot. He’s tough, but fair, and there won’t be any surprises. He cares a little about us, which is always nice, and the class size is small. I almost don’t even mind the math.

Finally, I’m in Human Histology. This is essentially an anatomy course. It’s down at the medical school, which makes me feel very grown up when I’m walking around there with all these soon-to-be doctors. This is probably going to be my most difficult course, but it’s the one that I’m enjoying the most. I’ve found anatomy fascinating for my whole life, and now I have a whole class on it! The labs are also very engaging. It’s a lot of microscope work, but I love doing that sort of thing!

So that’s what I’ve been up to during my 9 to 5. Are you guys in any interesting classes? What is your favorite class?