At Rice we called the "Rolls." You needed to take at least one Roll a semester to survive. mine is: "The History of Western Movies"-- We actually watched old, Western B movies in class. That said, one of the books "Six Guns and Society" I highly recommend as interesting, leisure, semi-academic reading to make you appreciate Western movie history.
I once got a C in a class that 94% of the people got an A in (according to pickaprof) Oceanography. I just couldn't work up the nerve to go. I did better in difficult classes that didn't require attendance. Oh I was the only C in that class. Go figure.
I got a C+ in elementary statistics for the same reason. It was a new teacher, who couldn't spell and was horrible at teaching things. It was also at 8 in the morning. He gave random quizzes, some of which I missed, and took off for attendance. Grade-wise, I had an A. Easiest/Most Fun class: Introduction to Athletic Training.
Some U of H business degree core requirement, a sophomore philosophy course called Critical Reasoning. Literally just logic trees and a lot of "necessary or sufficient" questions that I think I would have seen before on either IQ or other standardized tests. The professor was named Engel or something, kind of a character. What I couldn't understand was some of the students who just couldn't get it right away. Another one was one of the last two courses I took in college, one of those "Special Problems" business courses. Basically, the Trading Room/Investment Center had just been built at the Bauer College of Business. The consultant who helped put it together just held a course during Spring '02 where we talked about business software and got some guest speakers like a gas trader at Shell, a Bloomberg sales rep and some guy selling "3D" screens with images stacked on top of one another. Our end of year group project was basically to design some Reuters screens and decsribe them. Had some pretty easy English requirements as well. One was a "Rhetorical Analysis" course, where we learned about ad hominem, straw man attacks and the like; then we would do in class essay tests critiquing David Broder, Bill Safire or Charles Krauthammer columns. Another was the Fiction Literature requirement, the course theme was analyzing literature "through film." So we would read short stories like "Heart of Darkness" or "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been," then watch "Apocalypse Now" and "Smooth Talk," talk about them for two or three lectures, then do an in-class essay. The professor was finishing up her doctorate (I think all U of H freshman and sophomore English profs are grad students), so I she probably just wanted something low maintenance. Freshman Sociology was pretty easy, too, wrote a dreadful paper about American hegemony and got an A.
Astronomy. Our teacher yelled at students who weren't paying attention, like really busted their balls to the point everyone in the room felt horrible. He also said he was an alien and seemed to truly believe it. But his tests were ridiculous. He would go over the review by reading us the questions and telling us the exact answers. Uh yeah.
I had one day of math in college. As a freshman at UH, I signed up for algebra. I went to the first class and never made it back. I didn't drop it either. I passed with a C and I wasn't required to take any other math courses.
Bowling, 11am, T-Th. Easiest "A" I ever got, improved my average quite a bit, and had a lot of fun doing it.
HA! At the ghetto bowling alley? I took that too. At the last class or two they rigged it so that 8 pins counted a strike/spare so everybody's average skyrocketed right at the end.
Psychology, Dr. Kasschau, I believe. Went to class about 4 or 5 times. I got an A. Oddly enough, I enjoyed the times I went, but college bored the hell out of me and well, I wasn't a psych major.
Political Science...all you had to do was read the textbook and the questions were multiple choice, i like politics and government anyways...easiest class ever
Also had Kasschau, in one of those Agnes Arnold auditorium classes. I was too lazy to write a paper, so I had to settle for a C+.
Another easy class I took. I dropped it because it was too early. Took me years to finally get my damn kines credits because I couldn't handle the early start times.
Too many easy ones. But I would have to go with Modern U.S. History. Eventhough the subject required a lot of reading, I did NOTHING, I mean nothing in that class, and still got a C (or Credit) from cheating off of my friend. I did NOTHING for that class and still got Credit.
That's got nothing on PoliStat with Alford. A 300 level class that looked legitimate on your transcript but only amounted to 3 hours of work the entire semester. He told us the class was Gillis's idea so everyone could have a break.
LOL Oh man this sounds just like my old astronomy professor. He was an old man that wore a bright yellow wind breaker every lecture and he too believed that he was an Alien. He also called all of us "Stayler ASHE" what that meant? I have no idea to this day.
Did Stoll still teach what we dubbed "Guns and Rockets?" when you were there. It was an upper level Poli Sci class essentially about playing simulated, geopolitical War Games in a Global Nuclear, Cold War era.
Something called "Math for Liberal Arts Majors," which was basically pre-algebra taught at a very slow pace. I think everyone got an A.
