The easiest and toughest subjects in college

The media law class at my J-school wasn't that tough. Tedious, but not too tough. But I took a handful of 4000-level pre-law classes on race law and constitutional law where I was one of two or three people out of 60 or more who were not already provisionally accepted into the university's law school. It was pretty satisfying to be one of about 20 people to pass each class, and I still have fantasies about going to law school one day.

 

Easiest class: African-Americans in TV and Film. Each week, we'd watch a movie or a series of TV shows, like the Cosby Show, and briefly discuss it afterward. We had no tests, and all we had to do was write a couple of short papers on Spike Lee and Sidney Poitier films. Easy A.

Hardest class: A science class that I had to take as part of the general ed requirements. I barely got a D-

 

Easiest A: Sociology of Sports. We'd discuss issues in sports -- how kids are handled in Little League, stuff like that.
We were graded on participation. Everybody in the class hated me, because I never shut up.

Toughest: 400-level English class on 1400-1650 Literature. Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, crap like that. Had to finish 21 credits in fall term to start a job in January, needed a 400 English to finish and that was the only one I could get into. Took my B and was happy to get out.

 

Easiest - History of Rock and Roll in America. All of my grad classes - time consuming but I got a 3.9

Hardest - Mind you I have three degrees (B.A., B.S. and M.Ed.) and have attended five universities and three community colleges, but what sticks out as the hardest were...

Philosophy 101 at a community college
English 101 - first prof was an ass
The weed out at ASU was a huge media class with 400 or so seats. The top 50 percent moved on to 300 level courses and the lower 50 percent had to wait for the next semester to try again.
A theory of grading class were the prof said he did not use grade inflation. People dropped and retook the course over and over to try and preserve their 4.0s.

There is an expression in education that high school teachers work hard in college so they do not have to work for the rest of their lives and elementary teachers don't work in college but have to work hard for the rest on their lives. It's spot on.

 

Ditto on the linguistics, though mine was "History of English." I had that my final semester and hated it. I already had enough credits to graduate, so I stopped going about halfway through the semester and took the "U." It didn't drop my GPA that much.

Easiest was an astronomy class on science fiction films. Watch an old campy sci-fi film once a week, write a brief report, and that was that. Easiest three units of my career.

 

I had a Music Appreciation class in which the topic of one entire 2-hour lecture was: "How to buy a stereo." The one part I remember (uh, this was 35 years ago) was to decide which speakers you want and build the system from there. That is the opposite of what most people thought.
Another class was American Film Heroes. Twice a week we watched Paul Newman movies and had to write a one-page report it it.

 

Did you have to underline the f*** scenes for them?

 

Didn't have f*** scenes in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" or "The Hustler" or "Sting." Uh, I was in school before "Slapshot" was made.

 

Easiest class: Interviewing. The prof was a local radio host, he would bring in prominent people in the community, we would fire questions at them and craft a story about it for the following week.

Hardest: Analyzing English Grammar. Very tough class, pulled a B out of it because the prof (one of the best I have ever had) curved it. Learned a great deal, made me think about English in a different way.

 

Was an engineering major for 3 years before changing to Econ because grades were not going to cut it for entrance to Law School. Surprised that Econ grades were so low, but maybe it came easy after nuclear physics and upper division engineering.

Easiest: Military Science (geared for ROTC but open to everyone; instructor rang bell when something needed to be memorized for midterm)

Hardest: Differential Equations (Upper level Math after Calculus) Lots of work shown.