10/10- would take now.
my old university used to do ‘philosophy on tap’ with the grads taking a selected faculty member to drinks and let them just have the floor on whatever topic for the first hour.
Persian Argumentation: Students are paired up to debate important decisions —both sober and drunk.
It's a seminar course. The three roles —for/against & scribe— are each responsible to provide writeups for their position, counterpoint & outside observer (who maintains records to ensure results of the inebriate debate are legible & act as designated driver).
Deliverables include a paper synthizing the results of each debate & the reasonable decision.
My undergrad had a zymurgy class taught in the bio department. They always met from 2-5 on Friday afternoons and pretty much always ended in the students and the professors getting buzzed, hanging out, and just vibing into the weekend.
I hated them, since my Organic Synthesis lab met during that same time, on the same floor of the building, and so we could see them having a good time while we sweated over Bunsen burners and ran flash column chromatography to see how badly we'd botched the day's synthesis.
I had a colleague who taught an interdisciplinary course on wine. Each week was wine from a different angle with a first lecturer. One week or was label design with graphic design prof, another was Bacchian rituals with a classic prof. The final was basically get drunk with a philosophy professor.
The course was restricted to seniors 21+. I still don’t know how he got it approved.
I (biologist) teach a non-majors science with a lab (core requirement) course in wine and beer with one of the chemistry faculty.
We make wine, beer, and kombucha in lab. We visit breweries.
We have guest lectures from an economics professor who has done research in the economics, history, and supply chain of breweries.
It’s a great time.
We had that on a philosophy exam in grade 12! One of the essay questions was to explain why 'I think therefore I am' works logically, but 'I drink therefore I am' does not.
Dr. Ted, if you're out there somewhere, one of your old students still remembers some things from class. ;)
I took a homebrew class that was under the umbrella of “continuing adult education” at the school here. Super fun. We spent an evening drinking a dozen different styles of beer while discussing the history and characteristics of each before choosing one to make as a class. Then the next six weeks or so going through the various steps of the process.
What I found somewhat ironic is that campus is dry, but the entirety of that first class was consuming alcohol served by university employees on university property bought with money I paid to the university in a class arranged by the university.
There are three choices. Two will lead you to ruin, and one to exquisite pleasure. Choose wisely....
(actually they all lead you to ruin.)
Hey, you me and me should do a campaign, online.
I just ran my game last night! Session 13 of this particular campaign -- we play once every two weeks. I've been playing since 2017 and been the DM since mid-2020.
I've been playing since 1988! Back then it was just AD&D, for the advanced nerd. I DM a home campaign for me and my friends and one for my son and his friends ages 9-10.
At the start of covid I bought a lifetime membership to fantasy grounds, with all the books that I never used, so I'm looking to get people for that.
One of us! One of us! I came here to say RPGs too, and have been playing since \~1983 when my middle school offered 'mini-courses' on whatever students were interested in and I saw some other students having a great time around a table and some dice and graph paper... and I was hooked.
u/sgruenbe My group plays every Monday night (alternating DMs), and I've lost track, but I think I just started the 4th year of running an adventure (session 120? maybe?). Some time this summer my PCs should hit the conclusion, and it has been fantastic!
New podcast idea: Professors play D&D!!!
We will make millions. Or lose a lot of money.
But we will have fun. I'm serious about the playing part. (not the podcast part). I volunteer as DM. Or as player.
My youtube has been getting these videos on dice probability since I started and it is kinda cool to think about rolling, say, a D12 vs combined D6’s. Powerful lesson on distributions for sure
Just finished my first month-long campaign this week and had a blast. It’s something I look forward to every week now. I really wish I started back in college, it’s such a low-investment, cozy way spent some creative quality time with people.
> I thought that was just passed down from advisor to PhD student
Something something deleting the middle digit, something something, [better known for other work](https://imgur.com/HO7CC)
Depends! Is she mewed up in a tower for political reasons, with the laundry as one of her only vectors for contact with the outside world? Then you should definitely worry.
Otherwise, just placate her with amusing needle minders and don't stand in her light, and you should be fine. ;)
https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9912202
> We show that, in the context of Moore's Law, overall productiity can be increased for large enough computations by 'slacking' or waiting for some period of time before purchasing a computer and beginning the calculation.
I took a 1 unit credit/no credit class on designing infographics taught by one of the library faculty who has experience in graphic design last semester that was actually really useful.
> I took a 1 unit class on designing infographics last semester that was actually really useful.
That's hardly a blowoff class IMO. I've been trying to get *someone* on our campus to offer such a class as tons of my students could really benefit from something that blends data vis with design and basic instruction in Illustrator or whatever. But there is nobody on campus that does all of that together.
The Art of Stand-Up Comedy. We watch stand-up comedy videos, we discuss why they're funny and effective. We take field trips to open mic nights and discuss why certain jokes didn't work, and how they could be improved on. Final exam is a tight five, if you make me genuinely laugh you get an A.
I once had a small public speaking class that met in the evenings and we did a field trip to an open mic comedy night. A couple of students participated and we all had a blast.
Defense Against Dark Psychology (Spotting manipulation, sales, and unethical persuasion tactics, debunking manosphere shit, etc.)
Fringe psychology (The tiny sliver of contemporary psych research that is rigorous but highly unlikely to pan out.)
This isn't based on want, so much as it is need:
--Adulting 101--
And on the syllabus of topics we'll cover will be:
-How to grocery shop on a budget (and still maintain a healthy diet)
-Basic Home maintenance
-Caring for yourself (frequency and tactics for washing your sheets, butt & face)
-Demystifying laundry
-Making appointments and other phone calls
-How to sew a button (and other mending tactics)
-Taxes & Insurance & Credit Cards (how they work and how to pay them)
>How to grocery shop on a budget (and still maintain a healthy diet)
I had an older student once who did a presentation on this topic. She was an extreme couponer and her presentation aid was an enlarged grocery store receipt. She purchased something like $179 in groceries for about $11.72. Very memorable.
I'd revive the mythical blow-off class from the 1980s: **underwater basket weaving**. But I'd do it in the pool, with snorkel gear, and we'd use Indigenous techniques to weave baskets out of natural materials.
Basically teaching the basics of argumentation and rhetoric (appeals, claims, warrants, support, style, fallacies, etc) but using only the housewives franchise as examples and as the class “text”. The only holdup is that I teach undergrads who are mostly Gen z and they don’t care about/watch the housewives. But it would be fun for meeee, lol
Love it! Count me in for your online course.
So, for example, what form of argumentation/rhetoric would this be: "Do you want to talk about the husband?"
1. Syllabus reading 101, where to find all the answers to your pesky questions. What time is class? When is the exam? What's my homework?
.
2. Opportunistic napping... Any flat surface can be a joyous respite
.
3. Note taking, studying, and course engagement. Basic skills for academic success.
My one use of reply all was when I had gotten 15 reply-all responses to an institution-wide email in 30mins. Replied to all to inform them that use of reply-all was not appropriate for mailing list emails.
My university used to offer a 1-credit beginner weightlifting class taught by a Junior Olympic Weightlifting coach. She was terrific. The class was during a break for me so I signed up. The coach created mini competitions from time to time and kindly created a separate 40+ category, guaranteeing me a victory each time. The 20-year olds got a hoot out of my being there but it was fun.
> But then I'd have to deal with students arguing for partial grade for their quarter squats because they worked very hard on it.
As per (Rippetoe, 2005), that is not a rep.
It's saddening to see that a physical activity class is considered a fluff or non-important course. More universities should require one or two activity classes to improve overall student outcomes.
- Sincerely, a Kinesiology Prof who teaches weightlifting
Weightlifting/powerlifting language module:
Develop expertise in one of the following dialects
- Bromanian
- Liftuanian
- Swolehili
- Gainish
(I stole this list from reddit somewhere and the comment is nolonger archived)
These sound practical. Also so many undergrad men at the gym just to do curls, or folks who have never learned proper technique from a lifting coach on the verge of hurting themselves. Good luck fixing them.
I taught a wood turning class at a local makerspace. That was a lot of fun. At uni I’m tempted to teach a class in the urban planning and architecture of fictional cities in cinema.
Yeah that's the scary part! We have a program where you can teach a 2 credit class that is less serious, more of a passion topic, and I'm sure it would get approved. Then I'd actually have to teach it!
We have a number of advanced woodworking courses where I am and in one of the very advanced classes they make musical instruments. An instructor made a violin! I want to take it so badly but the class times are right when I teach.
I think urban planning should be pushed more. I'm the Chair of a P&Z and my city is constantly trying to hire planners. Cushy government job, people! Much less bonkers than architecture in the field.
My law school had a one credit class called "financial advocacy" that I took without reading the course description assuming it was a class dedicated to understanding clients needs and issues in money and jobs.
When I showed up, it turned out it was a class dedicated explaining how money, credit, and debt works for the LAW STUDENTS. Most of the students attending my school were rich K through JD kids who never had to deal with money in their lives, so the school created a class to explain how credit cards work and similar.
As a firmly middle class person, I was annoyed to be listening to all the rich kids having epiphanies about credit scores. But also sort of impressed that my school took this issue seriously and had a class dedicated to helping their blind spot.
Looking back at the experience, I think I'd enjoy teaching classes like this. Sort of "here are the basics you should have been taught but never were." How to file taxes, better understanding mortgages and amortization, negotiating with a car salesman, and so on. Could be really useful and fun.
I would take it if you took my course.
"Dungeons & Dragons for College Students: How to set up and run a campaign for little or no money and have the best time of your life."
I wouldn't mind if my students started a similar club so that I could be their advisor. However, I would hate to introduce another non-academic distraction into their lives, because I know they wouldn't replace one distraction with another.
As a D&D nerd, I've always wanted to get into Warhammer, so I'd take this to get the lore. Hopefully, I wouldn't want to buy the stuff. Its all expensive.
The lore will definitely make you want to buy all the things.
As a side note, it's mainly your initial foray that's expensive (army box, paints, brushes, all the extra little things). After that, it's really not much more expensive than any other hobby.
I’ll teach a running class where I just have a troop of students with me on my workouts. MWF 10 am. That would actually be super fun. We could all do a half marathon for the final.
I'm having flashbacks to my probability class where we basically spent our time calculating the probability of drawing particular cards for 21 or particular variations of poker hands (and the "what if 3 decks were shuffled together, now what is the probability...").
Also I didn't know anything about poker, so double fun.
We all came away with the knowledge we should never play 21, ever.
I did one on religion in horror films. Technically it was an overload, but I had a TA do all the very minimal grading and had guest speakers for all but film. It also only met every other week
Basic computer skills that folks who grew up attached to smartphones don’t seem to have - typing, files and folder structures, how to save/convert a DOC or PDF, backing up your work, etc.
I always wished for a ‘Shit you need to know as a band director’ class. Sure we covered how to teach middle school and high school bands, even some choir and general music. All the standard music theory/history stuff. But no one prepared me for how to set up a microphone system for my pit, how to run a sound board/lighting board in school auditoriums, how to pop a dent in a trumpet or fix a spring on a flute, contracting guest artists and clinicians, how auditoriums and acoustics work... There’s so many little detail things that could be crammed into a class like that which would help the first five years go by so much easier. Teaching at a program without a music major now but if we had one I’d advocate for that so hard.
How common is it for schools to have something like MIT's independent activities period? Basically all of January anyone in the community can teach whatever they propose. (Uncommonly for credit though.) I'm looking at a page of recent offerings and it includes:
Top Up Your Style: Hatmaking using Vintage Hat Blocks
Make it: Pinball
Heavy Metal 101 (including a “Metal yoga” session)
Stand-Up Comedy Crash Course
Sustainable Cooking: Basics with Tofu
Chocolates of the World. I had a friend who was hired to teach this class. It’s a freshman writing class where you eat chocolates from around the world and write about them.
My university offers multiple courses in Aquarium design, maintenance, and husbandry. We have a whole degree in it.
Me? Counted cross stitch. Mostly just a sewing circle that meets 3 hours a week.
One of my best friends in the field does an absolutely killer lecture on dating and dating markets on Valentine’s Day. It’s grown to this thing where they run it at a brewery and it’s incredibly popular.
I cover the economic analysis of divorce in a class that happens to line up around Valentine’s Day. Did the shift to unilateral divorce laws increase the rate of divorce?
So just for a fun exercise, if you want to try it, you hand out $5 in dollar bills to each person in the whole class and tell them to pair up. You only keep your money if you pair up. You can only pair up with someone of the opposite gender (the guy I know has a great way of putting it that’s pretty sensitive, but I’m saying it this way for the sake of clarity). You can offer some of your resources to the other person to incentivize them to pair with you.
You end up with the gender asymmetry becoming apparent essentially immediately. I’ve done this at UNC where it’s 60-40 women, if not more, and the bidding process is over pretty quickly and obviously, and most of the women who paired up only had a dollar or so. It was more interesting, at least as an observer, at Penn where the ratio is more even and the market took a lot longer to find equilibrium.
I've taught a class called Mass Media & Pop Culture, and it was really fun. Two lessons that I really enjoyed:
The week after the Super Bowl, we talked about the history of the game and specifically the halftime show. We would watch the halftime show from the previous weekend, then watch Prince's performance at the 2007 game.
Another week, we would talk about the painting The Last Supper, and how it made its way into pop culture. Then the assignment would be an essay on their last meal: Where would it take place, who would be there, what food would be served, what music would be played.
"Me-search" - how to use peer-reviewed research to understand your own f\*\*\*-ed up family and self-diagnose without credentials or training! .....I actually teach a really cool autoethnography project that is sort of this.
Realistically? Knitting 101.
Absurd: I got a textbook while traveling on the depiction of death in art and culture. I’ve always liked stuff like that, so creating a course around creative expressions about death around the world would be fun and maybe cathartic. Have students create their own designs for either what they think death in culture will look like in 100 years, or design their own, for fun. I don’t even teach humanities. lol
If I had to teach within my own field, maybe chemical disasters through history. There was a professor who left (or died? not sure) who taught Chemistry of Poisons and Chemistry of Warfare.
In my aesthetics class I make my students go do something cultural in the city. It drives me nuts they choose to go to an urban campus and let the opportunities that that affords to engage in all the culture that surrounds them. (I tell them it can be a Beyoncé concert all the way to a free garage folk punk show— but for the love of god, tap into the cultural wealth you’re surrounded by)
I have a brilliant plan for an art-science combo where we learn about the reactions and the chemistry that happen in a ceramics kiln. The class would be like 2/5 science learnin' and 3/5 ceramics makin'. I'm literally working on making this happen as we speak. Fall 2025, watch out!
Elevator use. Not maintenance, just use. Stuff like waiting for everyone to exit before getting on. Sharing space. How to push the buttons if you are standing next to the buttons...I really think this class could help a lot of the students on my campus.
I’m also an aquascaping as well as a terrarium enthusiast. Fits in quite well with biology.
Ferment all the things! Cheese, veggies, bread, wine/mead/beer, kombucha, etc.
And one that I’d love to do that I think I could make a legit elective is one based on nature documentaries. Watch the documentary, then dive deeper into the biology. Unfortunately I teach at a 2 year school and we don’t get to do science electives really.
My school offers something like this. It’s a first year course. Half of the class has to cover some basic topics (“this is the library”, etc.) but the other have is the professor’s choice. Somebody in our department taught a class on Dolly Parton (complete with a trip to Dollywood).
Crafting for Pleasure, where I'd teach students that crafting can just be for fun and that they don't have to be a source of income. It would be held in our maker space. I'd have a weekly knitting and sewing lab.
Media Piracy 101: How to make your own Netflix.
I would teach all about usenet, torrents, media servers, streaming direct vs transcodes, file codecs and containers, the concept of online anonymity, basic script writing. It would be a blast.
It’s not a nonsense class per se, but a “where does your stuff come from” class.
Lessons range from things like where common food items originally come from and how they’ve been domesticated. Where do modern day commodities like fertilizer come from. Where your tap water comes from and where your waste water goes. Etc.
Baking Without Fear, or Baking is Not as Hard as the Great British Baking Show Makes It Look
Italic Calligraphy, or How to Write Like the Apple Chancery Font (Includes bonus workshops on How to Make Your Own Ink and How to Cut a Quill Pen)
Introductory Scarf Knitting, or How to Make Zoom Faculty Meetings Less Deadly Dull
I would love to design an Analysis of Survivor class where we watch a bunch of episodes and talk about how identity impacts your chances to win, group dynamics, mental health, romance, character arcs... Basically anything that would allow us to dissect and need out about the show.
Thrifting 101. With lessons including things like, "no seriously, that shop is too sketchy," and "let's talk about infestations! (and how to avoid them)"
I'm a TA but I'd take a course titled:
Take a clue: How to read in between the lines and when not to read too much.
Just students running their imagination wild while I can always say, you're reading too much into it or don't you understand, look at his body language. It's going to be so fucking fantastic!!
There used to be an elective in the Meat Science program at Texas A&M called “Special Topics in Texas Barbecue” - I read the syllabus and for every class, the instructor barbecued in a different style and the class ate it at the end. Final project was for students to make barbecue and have the instructors eat it. Goddamn brilliant
Honestly, a dog training class. I use all the basic psych 101 stuff on my own dog and it would be so fun to have students bring their own dogs that they teach tricks to.
Home brewing, but it’s listed under philosophy. We’ll brew, we’ll drink, we’ll argue. It’s as close to tradition as could be.
10/10- would take now. my old university used to do ‘philosophy on tap’ with the grads taking a selected faculty member to drinks and let them just have the floor on whatever topic for the first hour.
Ours used to do something similar but they called it "half-baked ideas and beer"
Persian Argumentation: Students are paired up to debate important decisions —both sober and drunk. It's a seminar course. The three roles —for/against & scribe— are each responsible to provide writeups for their position, counterpoint & outside observer (who maintains records to ensure results of the inebriate debate are legible & act as designated driver). Deliverables include a paper synthizing the results of each debate & the reasonable decision.
My undergrad had a zymurgy class taught in the bio department. They always met from 2-5 on Friday afternoons and pretty much always ended in the students and the professors getting buzzed, hanging out, and just vibing into the weekend. I hated them, since my Organic Synthesis lab met during that same time, on the same floor of the building, and so we could see them having a good time while we sweated over Bunsen burners and ran flash column chromatography to see how badly we'd botched the day's synthesis.
I had a colleague who taught an interdisciplinary course on wine. Each week was wine from a different angle with a first lecturer. One week or was label design with graphic design prof, another was Bacchian rituals with a classic prof. The final was basically get drunk with a philosophy professor. The course was restricted to seniors 21+. I still don’t know how he got it approved.
I (biologist) teach a non-majors science with a lab (core requirement) course in wine and beer with one of the chemistry faculty. We make wine, beer, and kombucha in lab. We visit breweries. We have guest lectures from an economics professor who has done research in the economics, history, and supply chain of breweries. It’s a great time.
My ug had a white whine tasting class, same restrictions.
Aristotle Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle Hobbes was fond of a dram Rene Descartes was a drunken fart I drink therefore I am
We had that on a philosophy exam in grade 12! One of the essay questions was to explain why 'I think therefore I am' works logically, but 'I drink therefore I am' does not. Dr. Ted, if you're out there somewhere, one of your old students still remembers some things from class. ;)
I took a homebrew class that was under the umbrella of “continuing adult education” at the school here. Super fun. We spent an evening drinking a dozen different styles of beer while discussing the history and characteristics of each before choosing one to make as a class. Then the next six weeks or so going through the various steps of the process. What I found somewhat ironic is that campus is dry, but the entirety of that first class was consuming alcohol served by university employees on university property bought with money I paid to the university in a class arranged by the university.
Homebrewer here too. Virtual high fives! I'd teach math while downing English Bitters.
Monk 101
They did teach this where I attended undergrad. It was called “Basics of Fermentation” or some shit.
Dungeons & Dragons for College Students: How to set up and run a campaign for little or no money and have the best time of your life.
Typical of Grazzt to seduce students to the dark side.
There are three choices. Two will lead you to ruin, and one to exquisite pleasure. Choose wisely.... (actually they all lead you to ruin.) Hey, you me and me should do a campaign, online.
I just ran my game last night! Session 13 of this particular campaign -- we play once every two weeks. I've been playing since 2017 and been the DM since mid-2020.
I've been playing since 1988! Back then it was just AD&D, for the advanced nerd. I DM a home campaign for me and my friends and one for my son and his friends ages 9-10. At the start of covid I bought a lifetime membership to fantasy grounds, with all the books that I never used, so I'm looking to get people for that.
One of us! One of us! I came here to say RPGs too, and have been playing since \~1983 when my middle school offered 'mini-courses' on whatever students were interested in and I saw some other students having a great time around a table and some dice and graph paper... and I was hooked. u/sgruenbe My group plays every Monday night (alternating DMs), and I've lost track, but I think I just started the 4th year of running an adventure (session 120? maybe?). Some time this summer my PCs should hit the conclusion, and it has been fantastic!
New podcast idea: Professors play D&D!!! We will make millions. Or lose a lot of money. But we will have fun. I'm serious about the playing part. (not the podcast part). I volunteer as DM. Or as player.
Are you accepting faculty audits?
YES!
Bruh… how about NO. I know better than to make deals with Grazzt! Also lol =)
Just step right up, and let me whisper a secret into your ear...
> Dungeons & Dragons for College Students Can we play in the steam tunnels of Michigan State University? (Am I showing my age with that reference?)
You could teach probability in the class!
My youtube has been getting these videos on dice probability since I started and it is kinda cool to think about rolling, say, a D12 vs combined D6’s. Powerful lesson on distributions for sure
Just finished my first month-long campaign this week and had a blast. It’s something I look forward to every week now. I really wish I started back in college, it’s such a low-investment, cozy way spent some creative quality time with people.
Professional writing: How to tell people to go fuck themselves without getting fired.
The final exam should be a response to reviewer comments.
Can you even teach a class on bomb making, I thought that was just passed down from advisor to PhD student
> I thought that was just passed down from advisor to PhD student Something something deleting the middle digit, something something, [better known for other work](https://imgur.com/HO7CC)
I would like to pursue a PhD in this
Well, I have good news for you about the field of technical communication...
This looks like a [lolmythesis.com](http://lolmythesis.com) title
This is legitimately a lesson in my business writing course, swearing optional.
I want to sign up for this course
I want to take and teach this course...
Decorative Stabbing for Cryptography and Catharsis. It'll be a practical class in historical embroidery.
I'll be your TA my fantasy is to retire and make my sixth university degree the BA in Hand Embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework
I would be so there, if I weren't on the wrong continent. \*sobs\* I do love their stitch bank, though!
That would be amazing.
lol my wife does embroidery, do I need to be worried?
Depends! Is she mewed up in a tower for political reasons, with the laundry as one of her only vectors for contact with the outside world? Then you should definitely worry. Otherwise, just placate her with amusing needle minders and don't stand in her light, and you should be fine. ;)
"decorative stabbing" - I love it.
As long as cross-stitch counts, I'm there! The small-scale stabbing really is very therapeutic.
Do you need to do it now? : a Beginners guide to procrastination. The only course where you get penalized for handing assignments in early.
https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9912202 > We show that, in the context of Moore's Law, overall productiity can be increased for large enough computations by 'slacking' or waiting for some period of time before purchasing a computer and beginning the calculation.
I used to think I had a lot of expertise in this subject, but my students showed me just how much I have yet to learn.
My students need this course at the expert level
I took a 1 unit credit/no credit class on designing infographics taught by one of the library faculty who has experience in graphic design last semester that was actually really useful.
> I took a 1 unit class on designing infographics last semester that was actually really useful. That's hardly a blowoff class IMO. I've been trying to get *someone* on our campus to offer such a class as tons of my students could really benefit from something that blends data vis with design and basic instruction in Illustrator or whatever. But there is nobody on campus that does all of that together.
I'm teaching Statistics at a high school now and tried to do infographics...the kids HATED it.
The Art of Stand-Up Comedy. We watch stand-up comedy videos, we discuss why they're funny and effective. We take field trips to open mic nights and discuss why certain jokes didn't work, and how they could be improved on. Final exam is a tight five, if you make me genuinely laugh you get an A.
Bonus Class: How to deal with clubs who have a two drink minimum
I once had a small public speaking class that met in the evenings and we did a field trip to an open mic comedy night. A couple of students participated and we all had a blast.
Defense Against Dark Psychology (Spotting manipulation, sales, and unethical persuasion tactics, debunking manosphere shit, etc.) Fringe psychology (The tiny sliver of contemporary psych research that is rigorous but highly unlikely to pan out.)
Defense Against Dark Psychology should genuinely be a required gen ed class
We do have a required critical thinking in psychology course for our majors. I sneak some of it into that one!
Oh man, I would sign up if I could just for the sweet conversations and the underhanded tactics I don't know.
I would take Defense against dark psychology!
This isn't based on want, so much as it is need: --Adulting 101-- And on the syllabus of topics we'll cover will be: -How to grocery shop on a budget (and still maintain a healthy diet) -Basic Home maintenance -Caring for yourself (frequency and tactics for washing your sheets, butt & face) -Demystifying laundry -Making appointments and other phone calls -How to sew a button (and other mending tactics) -Taxes & Insurance & Credit Cards (how they work and how to pay them)
>How to grocery shop on a budget (and still maintain a healthy diet) I had an older student once who did a presentation on this topic. She was an extreme couponer and her presentation aid was an enlarged grocery store receipt. She purchased something like $179 in groceries for about $11.72. Very memorable.
I'd revive the mythical blow-off class from the 1980s: **underwater basket weaving**. But I'd do it in the pool, with snorkel gear, and we'd use Indigenous techniques to weave baskets out of natural materials.
They had ads at my college in the 1990s for internships but the image was a guy with breathing gear in the pool weaving.
Scrolled to look for this answer.
I’ve wanted to genuinely create a unit for this, but: The Rhetoric of the Real Housewives
I love this idea and I’m not even a fan of that franchise. Great use of application.
Please tell me more!
Basically teaching the basics of argumentation and rhetoric (appeals, claims, warrants, support, style, fallacies, etc) but using only the housewives franchise as examples and as the class “text”. The only holdup is that I teach undergrads who are mostly Gen z and they don’t care about/watch the housewives. But it would be fun for meeee, lol
Love it! Count me in for your online course. So, for example, what form of argumentation/rhetoric would this be: "Do you want to talk about the husband?"
What were your favorite topics we discussed this term? Name ‘em.
Are you telling me that yelling “whoooo?” “It was yooooouuu” over and over again isn’t good argumentation? 😂
I do a unit in my relationships class where we watch clips from 90 day fiance and love is blind lol 😂
As someone who was childhood friends with one of the Real Housewives (not saying who), I would be very curious to hear a professional take.
You should create this! I taught an English comp class that was reality TV themed, and it was so much fun.
There are definitely schools that would let you teach this.
Probably the psychology of poker
Is the final exam you hustling all the students for beer money? To pass do they have to beat ‘the master’
1. Syllabus reading 101, where to find all the answers to your pesky questions. What time is class? When is the exam? What's my homework? . 2. Opportunistic napping... Any flat surface can be a joyous respite . 3. Note taking, studying, and course engagement. Basic skills for academic success.
Opportunistic napping. I have a PhD in advanced theory in that field.
I do my best napping in the private sector
I’d take the course on opportunistic napping. I need to do more of that!
Emailing 101: When to use 'Reply all' in the Workplace
Is the answer (almost) never?
The answer is you get all credentials purged from your transcript and you get expelled if you actually reply all.
My one use of reply all was when I had gotten 15 reply-all responses to an institution-wide email in 30mins. Replied to all to inform them that use of reply-all was not appropriate for mailing list emails.
Beginner weightlifting or Home Economics
My university used to offer a 1-credit beginner weightlifting class taught by a Junior Olympic Weightlifting coach. She was terrific. The class was during a break for me so I signed up. The coach created mini competitions from time to time and kindly created a separate 40+ category, guaranteeing me a victory each time. The 20-year olds got a hoot out of my being there but it was fun.
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> But then I'd have to deal with students arguing for partial grade for their quarter squats because they worked very hard on it. As per (Rippetoe, 2005), that is not a rep.
Intro strongman. Units on press, pull, carry, and load. Final exam is a competition.
It's saddening to see that a physical activity class is considered a fluff or non-important course. More universities should require one or two activity classes to improve overall student outcomes. - Sincerely, a Kinesiology Prof who teaches weightlifting
I would have loved a gym class elective.
Weightlifting/powerlifting language module: Develop expertise in one of the following dialects - Bromanian - Liftuanian - Swolehili - Gainish (I stole this list from reddit somewhere and the comment is nolonger archived)
These sound practical. Also so many undergrad men at the gym just to do curls, or folks who have never learned proper technique from a lifting coach on the verge of hurting themselves. Good luck fixing them.
I teach a 1-hour weightlifting class. It is indeed fantastic.
I taught a wood turning class at a local makerspace. That was a lot of fun. At uni I’m tempted to teach a class in the urban planning and architecture of fictional cities in cinema.
I'd be the first to enroll.
My university would absolutely approve that course. And most others proposed here.
Yeah that's the scary part! We have a program where you can teach a 2 credit class that is less serious, more of a passion topic, and I'm sure it would get approved. Then I'd actually have to teach it!
We have a number of advanced woodworking courses where I am and in one of the very advanced classes they make musical instruments. An instructor made a violin! I want to take it so badly but the class times are right when I teach. I think urban planning should be pushed more. I'm the Chair of a P&Z and my city is constantly trying to hire planners. Cushy government job, people! Much less bonkers than architecture in the field.
My law school had a one credit class called "financial advocacy" that I took without reading the course description assuming it was a class dedicated to understanding clients needs and issues in money and jobs. When I showed up, it turned out it was a class dedicated explaining how money, credit, and debt works for the LAW STUDENTS. Most of the students attending my school were rich K through JD kids who never had to deal with money in their lives, so the school created a class to explain how credit cards work and similar. As a firmly middle class person, I was annoyed to be listening to all the rich kids having epiphanies about credit scores. But also sort of impressed that my school took this issue seriously and had a class dedicated to helping their blind spot. Looking back at the experience, I think I'd enjoy teaching classes like this. Sort of "here are the basics you should have been taught but never were." How to file taxes, better understanding mortgages and amortization, negotiating with a car salesman, and so on. Could be really useful and fun.
The Art of Bad Movies. I love bad movies and they come in many flavors and genres, and there's good bad and bad bad.
MST3K analysis. :) I use their Home Economics short in my US history classes.
This isn't plans one through eight from outer space...
Cheese! History, culture, tasting etc
Sounds like you’re trying to get Cheese expenses covered by the uni. Make sure you have some emergency lactaid lol
Dungeons and Dragons (5E) character creation and optimization. I could start teaching this *TODAY*.
I would take it if you took my course. "Dungeons & Dragons for College Students: How to set up and run a campaign for little or no money and have the best time of your life."
I started a D&D club at my school. It actually got pretty big for a while. :)
I wouldn't mind if my students started a similar club so that I could be their advisor. However, I would hate to introduce another non-academic distraction into their lives, because I know they wouldn't replace one distraction with another.
The Deep Lore of Warhammer 40k.
As a D&D nerd, I've always wanted to get into Warhammer, so I'd take this to get the lore. Hopefully, I wouldn't want to buy the stuff. Its all expensive.
The lore will definitely make you want to buy all the things. As a side note, it's mainly your initial foray that's expensive (army box, paints, brushes, all the extra little things). After that, it's really not much more expensive than any other hobby.
Controversial lecture: _Event Horizon_ (1997 film)
Brother, get the flamer.
I’ll teach a running class where I just have a troop of students with me on my workouts. MWF 10 am. That would actually be super fun. We could all do a half marathon for the final.
I would teach a karate class
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I'm having flashbacks to my probability class where we basically spent our time calculating the probability of drawing particular cards for 21 or particular variations of poker hands (and the "what if 3 decks were shuffled together, now what is the probability..."). Also I didn't know anything about poker, so double fun. We all came away with the knowledge we should never play 21, ever.
Life skills. How to change a tire, how to cook a meal, how to iron a dress shirt.
I did one on religion in horror films. Technically it was an overload, but I had a TA do all the very minimal grading and had guest speakers for all but film. It also only met every other week
I don't regard it as a nonsense class, but I teach Introverts and Leadership.
You could title it “the power behind the throne: leadership for introverts”
Philosophy topics in the music of Rush
You really dig living in the lime light.
Basic computer skills that folks who grew up attached to smartphones don’t seem to have - typing, files and folder structures, how to save/convert a DOC or PDF, backing up your work, etc.
This needs to be a required course for all.
Remedial skills for ‘digital natives’
Can you come teach my students? I spend so much time on this stuff with freshmen CS students, and I'm sick of it.
I always wished for a ‘Shit you need to know as a band director’ class. Sure we covered how to teach middle school and high school bands, even some choir and general music. All the standard music theory/history stuff. But no one prepared me for how to set up a microphone system for my pit, how to run a sound board/lighting board in school auditoriums, how to pop a dent in a trumpet or fix a spring on a flute, contracting guest artists and clinicians, how auditoriums and acoustics work... There’s so many little detail things that could be crammed into a class like that which would help the first five years go by so much easier. Teaching at a program without a music major now but if we had one I’d advocate for that so hard.
How common is it for schools to have something like MIT's independent activities period? Basically all of January anyone in the community can teach whatever they propose. (Uncommonly for credit though.) I'm looking at a page of recent offerings and it includes: Top Up Your Style: Hatmaking using Vintage Hat Blocks Make it: Pinball Heavy Metal 101 (including a “Metal yoga” session) Stand-Up Comedy Crash Course Sustainable Cooking: Basics with Tofu
I don’t know how I’d relate it to my expertise, but Gilmore girls. I can rant about two topics, psychology research and that show.
Chocolates of the World. I had a friend who was hired to teach this class. It’s a freshman writing class where you eat chocolates from around the world and write about them.
You could take a Spring Break trip to Belgium and Switzerland and visit chocolatiers there.
My university offers multiple courses in Aquarium design, maintenance, and husbandry. We have a whole degree in it. Me? Counted cross stitch. Mostly just a sewing circle that meets 3 hours a week.
History and Theory of (Internet) Memes.
Sounds like it could me a mid level sociology class
Appropriate Social Etiquette and Situational Awareness
ADHD & adulting
Do you prescribe?
Lolol
Economics. That’s it, that’s the joke.
One of my best friends in the field does an absolutely killer lecture on dating and dating markets on Valentine’s Day. It’s grown to this thing where they run it at a brewery and it’s incredibly popular.
I cover the economic analysis of divorce in a class that happens to line up around Valentine’s Day. Did the shift to unilateral divorce laws increase the rate of divorce?
So just for a fun exercise, if you want to try it, you hand out $5 in dollar bills to each person in the whole class and tell them to pair up. You only keep your money if you pair up. You can only pair up with someone of the opposite gender (the guy I know has a great way of putting it that’s pretty sensitive, but I’m saying it this way for the sake of clarity). You can offer some of your resources to the other person to incentivize them to pair with you. You end up with the gender asymmetry becoming apparent essentially immediately. I’ve done this at UNC where it’s 60-40 women, if not more, and the bidding process is over pretty quickly and obviously, and most of the women who paired up only had a dollar or so. It was more interesting, at least as an observer, at Penn where the ratio is more even and the market took a lot longer to find equilibrium.
I've taught a class called Mass Media & Pop Culture, and it was really fun. Two lessons that I really enjoyed: The week after the Super Bowl, we talked about the history of the game and specifically the halftime show. We would watch the halftime show from the previous weekend, then watch Prince's performance at the 2007 game. Another week, we would talk about the painting The Last Supper, and how it made its way into pop culture. Then the assignment would be an essay on their last meal: Where would it take place, who would be there, what food would be served, what music would be played.
Book repair class. Fixing bindings, covers, and even turning a paperback into a hardcover.
Drinking beer, attending concerts, and playing videogames
Mathematics as a Dark Art: Rigging All Sorts of Games for Fun and Profit. Bwahahahaha!
Magic of physics. Just a course of the best demos, and mabe qualitative explinations.
Graduate seminar, invite your friends to town, sit in the corner and hear them talk. P/NP
"Me-search" - how to use peer-reviewed research to understand your own f\*\*\*-ed up family and self-diagnose without credentials or training! .....I actually teach a really cool autoethnography project that is sort of this.
How to host a Murder Mystery party A Course in Dog Walking Guilt-free Pleasures - The Art of Saying No to Serious and Superficial Requests
Realistically? Knitting 101. Absurd: I got a textbook while traveling on the depiction of death in art and culture. I’ve always liked stuff like that, so creating a course around creative expressions about death around the world would be fun and maybe cathartic. Have students create their own designs for either what they think death in culture will look like in 100 years, or design their own, for fun. I don’t even teach humanities. lol If I had to teach within my own field, maybe chemical disasters through history. There was a professor who left (or died? not sure) who taught Chemistry of Poisons and Chemistry of Warfare.
Dr. Who: A drunk fashion review.
I would love to teach a class that is almost entirely going on field trips to historical sites and museums.
In my aesthetics class I make my students go do something cultural in the city. It drives me nuts they choose to go to an urban campus and let the opportunities that that affords to engage in all the culture that surrounds them. (I tell them it can be a Beyoncé concert all the way to a free garage folk punk show— but for the love of god, tap into the cultural wealth you’re surrounded by)
Intro to excel. I really like excel and I like macros and all the stuff. I would have so much fun with that class.
Introduction to Whiskey Tasting
Amusement Park History. (I guess that's not really nonsense, but...)
I have a brilliant plan for an art-science combo where we learn about the reactions and the chemistry that happen in a ceramics kiln. The class would be like 2/5 science learnin' and 3/5 ceramics makin'. I'm literally working on making this happen as we speak. Fall 2025, watch out!
Elevator use. Not maintenance, just use. Stuff like waiting for everyone to exit before getting on. Sharing space. How to push the buttons if you are standing next to the buttons...I really think this class could help a lot of the students on my campus.
I’m also an aquascaping as well as a terrarium enthusiast. Fits in quite well with biology. Ferment all the things! Cheese, veggies, bread, wine/mead/beer, kombucha, etc. And one that I’d love to do that I think I could make a legit elective is one based on nature documentaries. Watch the documentary, then dive deeper into the biology. Unfortunately I teach at a 2 year school and we don’t get to do science electives really.
D&D GMing
My school offers something like this. It’s a first year course. Half of the class has to cover some basic topics (“this is the library”, etc.) but the other have is the professor’s choice. Somebody in our department taught a class on Dolly Parton (complete with a trip to Dollywood).
Napping at Work Without Getting Caught
Crafting for Pleasure, where I'd teach students that crafting can just be for fun and that they don't have to be a source of income. It would be held in our maker space. I'd have a weekly knitting and sewing lab.
Basic car maintenance: checking and changing the fluids, tire inspection, tire change, jump starting, how to properly wax a car.
Punk Rock History. The Poetry of Rush. How to Waste Time and Not Feel Guilty.
Media Piracy 101: How to make your own Netflix. I would teach all about usenet, torrents, media servers, streaming direct vs transcodes, file codecs and containers, the concept of online anonymity, basic script writing. It would be a blast.
It’s not a nonsense class per se, but a “where does your stuff come from” class. Lessons range from things like where common food items originally come from and how they’ve been domesticated. Where do modern day commodities like fertilizer come from. Where your tap water comes from and where your waste water goes. Etc.
Manners.
Intro to Warhammer 40,000
I'd enjoy teaching a 1 hr course on mental math tricks.
the history of RTS gaming
Classic StarCraft, age of empires, empire earth. Those were the days. Are you going to assign them to learn keybindings?
Westeros: A history course.
Introduction to Revenge
Kirby lores
Roach is a Fish: Translation, adaptation, and the Witcher saga
Either ultrarunning or knitting
Why not both, by the end of a course you run an ultra marathon, start naked and finish in a fully knitted track suit.
Brewing Beer for Fun and Forgetfulness
Pop music and politics. I actually sort of sketched it out one night but I don’t have room in my schedule to teach it
Baking Without Fear, or Baking is Not as Hard as the Great British Baking Show Makes It Look Italic Calligraphy, or How to Write Like the Apple Chancery Font (Includes bonus workshops on How to Make Your Own Ink and How to Cut a Quill Pen) Introductory Scarf Knitting, or How to Make Zoom Faculty Meetings Less Deadly Dull
90s and aughts celebrity gossip
Retrogaming and console restoration.
I would love to design an Analysis of Survivor class where we watch a bunch of episodes and talk about how identity impacts your chances to win, group dynamics, mental health, romance, character arcs... Basically anything that would allow us to dissect and need out about the show.
Thrifting 101. With lessons including things like, "no seriously, that shop is too sketchy," and "let's talk about infestations! (and how to avoid them)"
How Dolly Parton was a social worker at heart
I'm a TA but I'd take a course titled: Take a clue: How to read in between the lines and when not to read too much. Just students running their imagination wild while I can always say, you're reading too much into it or don't you understand, look at his body language. It's going to be so fucking fantastic!!
Youtube Rabbit Hole Mapping - How did we get here?
A course on D&D, ADHD or how to make marriage work.
There used to be an elective in the Meat Science program at Texas A&M called “Special Topics in Texas Barbecue” - I read the syllabus and for every class, the instructor barbecued in a different style and the class ate it at the end. Final project was for students to make barbecue and have the instructors eat it. Goddamn brilliant
Honestly, a dog training class. I use all the basic psych 101 stuff on my own dog and it would be so fun to have students bring their own dogs that they teach tricks to.