So what was the best class you took in college? Not the hardest or easiest, but the one that ...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Bill Leuchtenberg’s modern US course, sophomore year. I knew right then what I wanted to do.

So what was the best class you took in college? Not the hardest or easiest, but the one that changed your life?

Link to tweet

[LisaM]

1. Poetry writing, I guess.

I took 3 of them and they are the ones I go back to the most.

[captain queeg]

2. Probably trigonometry or Strength of Materials

Didn’t like either of them but they were very important in my early career. Used them all the time.

[CountAllVotes]

3. A class on Evil

This was in grad school and it was FASCINATING!

[TuxedoKat]

71. That sounds fascinating

Do you recall any of the books you had to read for that class?

Did you ever read People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck?

[CountAllVotes]

75. It has been almost 25 years now

I cannot remember what books we read but it was several of them.

We spent a lot of time reading Jung and Joseph Campbell among other people.

The professor that held this class was a Native American that has written a lot about the subject of genocide and also evil.

It was fascinating, I remember that much and yes, I learned a lot.

[TuxedoKat]

76. Ok thank you! (nt)

[LakeArenal]

4. The taxonomy of trees.

Out looking at trees in September.

Loved it.

[Beakybird]

5. I had a genius English literature teacher.

I would read an assigned book and just understand the plot, and in class he revealed to me the deep tapestry of symbolism and archetypes beneath the words.

[CanonRay]

6. Constitutional Law

Great professor

[lastlib]

21. Constitutional Law and Essay Writing.

Communist Systems and Western Political Theory rank high, as did Modern European History and Calculus.

I really had a lot of good classes in college, and only a couple that I didn't like.

[42bambi]

7. Writing, which took me on another path, writing poetry. Then speech class, giving

me enough confidence in myself to speak in front of an audience.

[safeinOhio]

8. Psychology of Sex.

Learned a lot.

[madaboutharry]

9. An English Literature class

on the Romantic era.

I had the most wonderful professor. I was very saddened when he passed away at a relatively young age.

That class transformed me into a reader.

[Karadeniz]

34. I loved that, too, so I worked on it...got an A++...really!

[dweller]

10. 3 independent studies courses

w/ Sensai Sanders, where we took ancient Taoist texts and translated them to English for comparison to his translations. Had to tote a Matthews Concordance around for 3 semesters delving into subtle wording, obscure characters and mystical, mysterious practices from the Bon to early Taoist religion.
Was it fun? Not always, but the class was small, just 3 students and the professor
and we tossed around a variety of ideas pertaining to the subject matter.
And it was easy Aces boosting my GPA, so ...

✌🏻

[Tikki]

11. A Pacific Islands Culture class.

The Professor had been on Papua New Guinea before, during and after World War II.

The class study was beyond amazing.

Tikki
p.s. I was an Anthro Major

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. A course titled "Introduction to Mathematical Proofs" or...

... something to that effect. I enjoyed and had a talent for it. That's when I declared as a math major.

Took a philosophy elective titled "Symbolic Logic" around the same time, and I rocked that class easily as well.

There were several interesting courses in history, economics, etc.

It usually depended on the professor for me. There was a very young and recent "Art History" PhD from Harvard teaching one of my history classes, and I dropped it ASAP. He mostly showed slides of ancient artwork and informed us it would be the bulk of our exams. It was supposed to be a general history class, part of a series of three to satisfy the minimum requirement for a section of the history education! (Took that same history course the next quarter from an older professor, and it was great!)

[ProudMNDemocrat]

13. English Literature

Yeats, Keats, Byron, Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, T.S.Eliot. Great 2 Semester class.

[applegrove]

14. Jane Parpart "African History". She said we knew so little about africa that

our text book would be really thin and we would read novels to get the real feel of issues. Political economy i think was her specialty. It was two courses. Mind blowing.

[flamin lib]

15. General Semantics.

Learning the difference between the words we use and the things they mean.

There is no objective reality because we see the world through the collection of our experiences; reality is the world as we perceive it and we perceive it through our experiences. Perception is reality.

[Ferrets are Cool]

16. Logic

It was like solving a puzzle.

[WheelWalker]

22. Symbolic logic. Great sequence.

I always did rather poorly in math, but aced every logic course. Seems odd, but true.

[Ferrets are Cool]

23. Same here

Just the way our brains work, right?

[WheelWalker]

27. Right. Momma always said to mind my p's and q's.

[Hoyt]

17. Freshman sociology. Professor walked in Monday with a big head bandage.

Turned out he had been to a Civil Rights and Vietnam protest over weekend and was clubbed by police. He threw away his course outline and spent the rest of the quarter talking about those two issues. It was a conservative school at the time, and I was lucky to get a great instructor.

[walkingman]

18. Cultural Anthropology, specifically "ethnology". As an engineering student it helped me appreciate

the very significant and variety of differences in people that make up our planet. We must embrace diversity, it is our only hope for survival. Supposedly we learn from our past.....we shall see.

[jmbar2]

19. The Economics of Education

Graduate level class that looked at the return on investment to education, and how a highly segmented the labor market delivers different returns to investment in education by gender, age, race, social class, family structure, etc.

I was doing graduate school at midlife in order to change careers. It was in that class that I learned that there were multiple labor market segments, each with different rules and returns on investment. Some people have "good" stable jobs in the primary or core labor market, while others will never be able to get into the best jobs, despite how hard they work at it.

When I realized that I would likely never be allowed into the primary labor market due to my age at recareering, I cried for two solid hours in front of the class. I had taken on a so much debt, without knowing what I was doing.

I never did get into the core labor market. Ended up being an independent consultant with a feast or famine lifestyle. Everything in that class adequately predicted that I would never recoup my investment in education.

I created a simplified version of the course in the form of a careers exploration class that I taught to disadvantaged kids to help them understand the structure of the labor market, and how to make good educational investments. Also taught it to middle aged adults who were laid off. Each time I taught it, at least one person would break down the same way I had, asking "Why don't they teach this to everyone?"

The labor markets are even more messed up now than they were when I first studied it. God help the younger generations.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

28. That sounds like a class everyone should take in high school,

and again in college.

[LeftInTX]

20. Calculus and analytic geometry

Opened doors for me.
I had knack for it.

[unc70]

24. Never had a class from Leuchtenberg, but ...

But I've been privileged to know him casually for several decades in Chapel Hill. Have also heard him speak on several occasions. One of the sad aspects of the COVID epidemic is not seeing friends like the Leuchtenbergs for nearly a year.

[WheelWalker]

25. History of Rome. Two term sequence. Most enjoyable.

International Relations - Real Nation Gaming. Learned the most. Another two term sequence... a role playing simulation. I was in the group representing the United States, identified in the gaming run as Tsilatipac Gip (Capitalist Pig). Pacta sunt servanda.

[Laffy Kat]

26. Physical Anthropology.

I learned so much. Worked my ass off and made a low C. Still, I loved every second.

[Kali]

55. that is different

most people seem to prefer cultural. can I ask where and who? (kind of familiar with the field due to some family connections)

[Laffy Kat]

56. It was a community college, although the prof. also taught at Metro in Denver (I think).

For the life of me, I can't remember his name. It was a long time ago. I usually found community college classes to be around the tenth-grade level, but this one wasn't and it kicked my ass, although I learned so much and wanted more.

[Kali]

57. ha! yeah there can be some rigorous instructors out there

[Guilded Lilly]

29. "Shakespeare Lives"...an absolutely joyful Professor Horn relived...

every word of Shakespeare’s finest, and infected us all with an unabashed love and appreciation and passion for the written word and how ol’ Will’s centuries old sentiments lived so vividly in our current day.

The man had an indomitable imp living inside him and a true master’s grasp of the Bard. It was impossible not to feel his joy!

[SharonAnn]

30. Philosophy classes. All of them.

[SharonAnn]

31. Philosophy classes. All of them.

[Upthevibe]

32. Favorite college class....

Since I went back to get my degree as a full-time working adult and graduated from Cal State at 41 years old, I had an appreciation for learning I don't think I would have had if I'd gone to college when I had just gotten out of high school. Off the top of my head I'd say my History and Philosophy classes. Plato's Allegory of the Cave had a profound impact on me.

[Karadeniz]

33. Ancient Greek, intensive summer course......or transformational grammar, which has deservedly

Died, I think...no one else understood it... and accounting101

[dawg day]

37. I loved transformational grammar too..

it was very helpful for my writing.

[Karadeniz]

46. I can't believe it! Yay for us! It was like verbal geometry and I loved geometry in high school..

Couldn't wait to get home, flop on my bed and start doing proofs!!! In my trans grammar class, I swear no one else... about 200...knew what was going on. We only covered half the syllabus because things had to be gone over and over and over... That's why I figured it'd died.

[dawg day]

52. It taught me to see the roles that words combined

played on sentences... functional, not legalistic rules.

[dawg day]

36. Pastoral poetry

every session was a revelation of how to climb a mountain and stand at the top and see beauty and truth. I don't remember all the knowledge, but I've never forgotten the feeling of enlightenment.

[csziggy]

38. Dr. Dudley DeGroot's "Introduction to Anthropolgy"

My freshmen year at Florida Presbyterian College (now Eckerd College). He was a great lecturer and very inspiring. After taking that course, I did an independent study class sorting and identifying artifacts from a dig the college had done. Then I realized, I liked that sort of study and planned work in a museum.

At that time Florida did not have any museology courses so I did a double major in Library Science and Anthropology. Never got that museum job, but those majors have enriched my life as I have studied on my own all sorts of subjects - and have the books to prove it.

[no_hypocrisy]

39. Theater History with Joe Roach

who's now the head of Drama/Theater at Yale.

I took notes but they weren't necessary. I remembered almost verbatim everything that Joe said in class. Taking the exam was like filling out a form; I knew everything.

The course incorporated art history and music history as well.

It was the only class I looked forward to going to.

[Guilded Lilly]

53. This sounds wonderful :)

[TlalocW]

40. My last Spanish class for a major

I triple-majored in math, physics, and Spanish. Spanish was going to be a minor, but there were just two classes difference between a minor and a major.

My college has a program where you went to Mexico for a month with one of the professors from the Spanish department. Spent some time in Mexico City then we went to the city and state of Oaxaca where we stayed with host families where whatever class you needed, the professor would teach, and then back for a little under a week in Mexico City. So he taught some Spanish II to some other students from my university. A basic Spanish class for some non-university students (the program was open to all). Spanish III to a few others, and then we were one-on-one for my class.

I was the best Spanish-speaker (apart from the professor) on the trip. My first week there, I surprised everyone by taking the metro to a bus station to go to nearby Puebla to visit a family I had stayed with in high school. I also stayed a couple extra days after everyone else left to go back to Puebla. I dated a Mexican-American girl on the trip, and we're still great friends today - one of my longest friendships. It was funny - when we would go do things, people would talk to her, and she would turn to me for a translation, earning some funny looks. I also think some people thought she was a working girl - I asked directions to a movie theater, and the guy looked over my shoulder at her across the street, winked at me, and gave me directions. We followed his directions, and ten minutes later we were in front of a porno theater. We visited so many places, met so many people, and ate some wonderful food. Up until a few years ago, I could still remember the taste of Chiles en Nogada - a chili dish from Oaxaca smothered in walnut sauce. Don't know why that went away, but it made me sad.

We were there during a city-wide celebration called Guelaguetza. One of my most vivid memories is we were all returning from something at night, and we saw large things moving a block away and investigated. We were close to a large church with a large wall around it - street lights and the color of the wall kind of bathed the whole area in an orange light. We found people wearing large puppet costumes called titeres - very light costumes constructed out of bamboo in a kind of circular bird cage pattern which was then made up with fabric and paper-mache heads to look like people (some nearly 10 feet tall). The people in them were just shuffling and dancing around on the cobblestone without music practicing to get used to moving in them for a parade. It was kind of an eerie/supernatural scene. We took pictures with them, including a young boy probably no taller than four feet tall (his costume was just over five feet tall). My professor gave him/his puppet bunny ears.

TlalocW

[Solly Mack]

41. Intro to Social Psychology

[Sherman A1]

43. US Military History

And American History 1900 to the Present. Both taught by the same professor who was a great guy, easy going and good at his job.

[gladium et scutum]

44. Lithic Technology

an anthropology class on stone working. Made arrow heads, spear points, scrapers, etc. from flint, chert and obsidian. The final exam required we make the stone tools necessary to skin and cut up a rabbit.

[betsuni]

45. Best class I took wasn't in college.

A ballet master infamous for kicking students out of class -- like Gordon Ramsey without the cursing. I learned to give up ego, any thought whether I could do something or not, just be and do. All I wanted was to earn his respect, which made me accomplish things I didn't think I was capable of. It was a revelation, a freedom. Once he got mad and told a student to do what he says because "In this classroom I am God." It's true! It's just a classroom. Not real life. Just do what instructors say in the classroom and make fun of them later.

A little like those movies about joining the military and a terribly strict sergeant has to whip recruits into shape and they hate him at first but see what he's done for them and come to love him.

[Wawannabe]

47. African American Music

Learned so much about African influence on rock n roll. Cried about my new knowledge of how many blacks were kept off the charts, off the radio, and had their songs stolen or no royalties paid. Heartbreaking.

My final paper was an essay on James Brown. He lived life and played music "on the one"! And ever since I live my life "on the one" as I learned it from him. It may not be about music for me but the "first beat" is the most important and I feel like the first beat is my gut reaction to any decision that I have to make.

Love me some James Brown!

[Wicked Blue]

48. An intro anthgropology course I took during a summer session nt

[CTyankee]

49. Mysticism

It was a religion course (and at a Catholic college). We studied the writings of Rumi, a 12th century poet and mystic in ME theology.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

50. Physics. It might not have been the best or most influential class

I ever took, but it's the one I remember best because it was so interesting - it mostly addressed the theoretical, super-weird stuff of quantum physics, and although I'm not smart enough to really get it, I was fascinated.

[Ron Obvious]

51. None. I hated all of them. All of my professors too.

Same with virtually every teacher I ever had since primary school. I can't answer that common security question about favourite teachers because I didn't have one.

Now that I'm older and retired, I'm willing to concede the possibility that a small portion of the problem was on my side.

I've got BS and a BA, but still consider myself an autodidact anyway.

[RobinA]

70. I Can Say

I had some decent teachers in high school. Nobody stands out from college, but grad school was better. I didn’t hate them, but I wasn’t a fan. People always ask, What teacher changed your life? I can honestly say none came close. I love learning, but teachers were just kind of there for better or worse.

I hated two. Con Law in college, the guy was a Bible banger and a conservative big time. Very unsophisticated thinker when it came to his subject. Second, Harvey Somebody my high school guidance counselor. Guy was NO HELP whatsoever. A little encouragement from this f*ck early on might have made a big difference in my life, but nooooo. I never got the slightest bit of help from any teacher.

[Kali]

54. sociobiology and animal behavior

Dr. John Alcock, Arizona State University

brought so many interests and observations into a coherent perspective for me

same happened when I read Allan Savory on Holistic Resource Management (and they meshed together well, though Alcock is now kind of anti-livestock)

[WestLosAngelesGal]

58. Painting with Acrylics

Painting with Acrylics made me realize how none of my other classes were going to give me a fraction of the fulfillment of expressing myself through art.

[madamesilverspurs]

59. Intercultural Communication

Really provided insight into why others see us the way they do. As fascinating as the international implications were/are, it also delved into the many cultures within our own neighborhoods. It was a phenomenal tool for opening a wider and more realistic perspective.

For the record, this was in the mid-'90s when I'd gone back to school after more than thirty years. I'd always considered myself to be very open-minded, but this class served to open my mind - and eyes - to many aspects of life that I'd never considered. These last few years I've often thought of that class.


.

[Danmel]

60. Jack Salzman's American Literature class at Hofstra University

Probably 1978. He took an interdisciplinary approach and included works by authors whose perspectives were fresh and diverse. Really opened my eyes to different perspectives and styles of writing. Made me a much better writer and a better person.

[Aristus]

61. History of the Cold War.

I took this class in college right at the end of the Cold War, in 1988-1989. The instructor was brilliant, and not afraid to sidestep the party-line U.S. - good; USSR - bad narrative. We learned a lot more that way than if he had stuck to Cold War propaganda.

One of the highlights of the course was a one-day student United Nations. The scenario was a potential shooting war between the Italians and Yugoslav separatists (this was before the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the hideously destructive "Balkanization" that followed.)

I was elected Secretary General of the U.N., and the other students were divided into the U.S., Western allies, neutrals, Soviet allies, and the Soviet Union.

I spent nearly the entire class time running back and forth between the tables where the other powers met. Every five minutes or so, the instructor would announce an event that would forward or change the scenario (Separatists hold Italian civilians hostage, authorities catch someone smuggling arms to the Separatists, etc.), and that would start another flurry of diplomatic activity.

By the end of the hour, I had helped NATO, Yugoslavia, and the Warsaw Pact avert a shooting war. The solution was a breakaway province comprising territory taken from Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia. We helped preserve the peace.

Before he dismissed us, the instructor congratulated us, and revealed that his intention the whole time was to get one or more of the powers to declare war, a la World War I, and that he was surprised that we managed to avert it.

Any look at real life will show that any aversion of war we had brokered would have been temporary, and that our Balkanization solution led to horrible things in real life. But we had accomplished a peace-keeping mission. no one ended up dead by the time the course ended.

[zanana1]

62. Film 101.

It opened my eyes to a genre that I'd taken for granted before.

[Leith]

63. There are a few that stand out

Geology 101 - it was a general ed course and it was the only one held at the time I could schedule because of work. At first I thought I would hate the teacher because she had a high and whiny style voice, but I got used to it and didn't mind it because she was the best lecturer I have ever had. The final was tough, but good. One part of it was to go into a classroom that was set up with about 150 types of rocks and minerals and we had to identify them. The absolute best one was a trilobyte fossilized in pyrite. It looked like an Egyptian scarab!

Computer Science 201 - it was for learning about how hardware and software work together. Nowadays they use C++, but since C hadn't been devised yet, we used Assembly (kind of an English version of machine code if you are not technically inclined). We started off learning how computer chips were constructed by using bread boards and telephone wires (think of an oija board with holes for inserting telephone wires in a way that will create a giant chip).

A funny story about a Cobol class: it was a Saturday morning class so the students were older than the usual classes. On the day of the first class, I woke up to 18" of snow and I couldn't get out of the driveway. I went the next week and I nearly walked out. The guy behind the table at the front was the spittin' image of a boyfriend I got rid of a couple years earlier. They could have been brothers with a strong family resemblance.

It turned out that he was entirely innocent and was a good teacher. After the final, we all met at a local pub to celebrate. I and another couple of ladies got there first so we had one or two and I got talky and told them about how Dennis looked so much like an old boyfriend that I almost dropped the class. Then Dennis came in and we all burst out laughing. We were all so comfortable with each other by that time that I told him what was so funny. He thought it was funny, too.

[ck4829]

64. Sociology 101. It made me rethink everything, I changed my major, and set me down a different road

[mnhtnbb]

65. I wouldn't say the Art History course I took changed my life

but it surely was the course I most enjoyed and has contributed to my appreciation and enjoyment of seeing paintings in person in museums throughout my life.

My undergrad degree was a BS which meant lots of anatomy, physiology, psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, statistics--with an almost minor in economics-- that led to a masters degree in public health. A very different world.

[hunter]

66. The class that changed my life was paleontology.

I'd been kicked out of college twice and it was looking like I'd never go back. I could make good money as a semi-skilled laborer and nobody cared if I was crazy so long as I got the work done.

One day I found some fossils on a construction site and asked my former paleontology professor if they were anything interesting.

He pointedly asked me why I hadn't finished school.

Uncharacteristically I told him, in full meltdown mode, stories I don't even tell here on DU forty years later. PTSD stuff.

I don't know why, other than kindness, he invited me to assist on his field trips and helped me get back into school.

The dean of the college reluctantly took me back. The first time I was told to take time off from college was for fighting with one of his teaching assistants so it was a very awkward meeting for me. I think he also knew I had multiple accounts on the university computer network, etc, but we didn't talk about that. We didn't talk about a lot of things.

Colleges today are much more aware of student mental health issues but are maybe less tolerant of their trespasses.

It took me nine years to graduate from college.

[Hotler]

67. College English and the writing assignments.

My English professor was a real hard-ass. I didn't know one could get yelled at in red ink. That class was the switch that turned on my critical thinking skills the most.

[yellowdogintexas]

68. Introduction to the Old Testament with Dr Ed Beavin

This was a required class, not just for graduation either. Until you passed it, you were a Sophomore.
It was a challenging and extremely interesting class, and Dr Beavin was an absolute hoot.

There was no literalist or fundamentalist theology; this was a Methodist college. On the first day, he told us we would study things which could disturb some of the class members, and invited them to discuss with him at any time but in no uncertain terms we were never to argue with him on exams!!

His opening statement that first day was "For the next 6 weeks we will focus on the Mythology of the Hebrews. Mythology is the attempt of a primitive society to explain things it does not understand"

If he was comparing literalist interpretations of the Old Testament to those based on archaeology and studies using the ancient languages, he described the literalist version as "poppycock, hogwash, gutter rubbish and claptrap (vehemently)

I wish I had not lost the Bible I used in that class - it was full of notes.

My other favorite class was Shakespeare and I am still in touch with that professor after 50 years

[NNadir]

69. Physical Organic Chemistry.

My introduction to the Woodward Hoffman Rules.

After that the only reactions about which I wanted to think, for a very long time, were pericyclic reactions.

I also found my professor at the time to be incredibly sexy because she was so god awful smart.

(I'd met my future wife at the time, but it was still in the period where she was flipping me off.)

[blue neen]

72. It was an Art History class.

I loved it and learned so much. It had nothing to do with my major, Business Marketing, but it started a lifelong curiosity and interest in Art that otherwise would not have existed.

[MissB]

73. Structural analysis

The prof was harsh. I still remember him walking into the lecture hall after he’d graded our first midterm. As he spoke quietly to us, we all sunk down in our seats a couple of inches. He knew how to express disappointment.

He was brutal but truly it was the best class.

Two years later he asked me to go to a leadership conference for aspiring female engineers.

When I took my FE exam, I’m sure I aced the structural part of it. Literal cakewalk. I still remember some of it, and it’s never been needed in my particular practice of engineering, over a quarter of a century later.

[handmade34]

74. I think often

the class that changes us is the teacher who teaches it... not always but often. I could not name just one class because there are so many, in different ways...

"Russian History" by a Professor we students liked to call the "original Bolshevik"
"Medical Ethics"
"English Literature" by a Professor right out of school himself and he was dynamic!
"The Transformative Power of Ritual" in seminary that opened my eyes to so much
and others...

obviously my education was very eclectic

[hurl]

77. Survey of the Bible

I grew up in a fundamentalist Southern Baptist family and dutifully attended the world's largest Baptist university. Having been indoctrinated with a literalist interpretation and significant anti-intellectual bias, I was surprised to find a professor who treated the Bible as just ancient literature and not some god's infallible word - especially at this university. By that time, I already had read the entire Bible (sans apocrypha) between 5 and 10 times cover to cover. And yet it never occurred to me that there were, for example, two separate and contradictory creation accounts. All the people in my Sunday school classes just glossed over things like this hoping we wouldn't notice, while implying that questioning might endanger our souls. Obediently, I buried my inquisitiveness and didn't read as closely as I should have.

Just that one crack in the flimsy foundation of literalism was all it took to open my eyes and see the fatal implications to my old view. I'm embarrassed that I ever believed that stuff but grateful that my life was changed by this class.

[yellowdogintexas]

82. I was raised Methodist so no literalism; however the two creation stories just sort of slid by me

until Dr Beavin enlightened us. Stuff like that is cool, isn't it?

I now own an Oxford English Bible with Apocrypha and I keep intending to read those books.

My ex took a class in Seminary featuring the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The textbooks weight about 10 pounds each. The students referred to it as Intestinal Literature because you were at risk of hernia if you picked both of them up at the same time. .(the course was actually titled Inter-Testamental Literature)

A class which opens your eyes will always be remembered

[IsItJustMe]

78. I majored in computer science

but my favorite classes where in philosophy. I remember reading about Paul Sartre and how he was examining his hand in determining if it was a part of him or not (existentialism). I remember having an experience of an epiphany in realizing that no thought or feeling that I ever had was foreign. Someone else had it, and wrote about it.

[DFW]

79. Anthropology from Professor Alan Mann

He was SO good, I almost changed my major right then and there.

Maybe I should have. He later went on to teach at Princeton, though I think he remains affiliated with the college where I took his course. He really made the subject come alive, and drew you into it as if it were entertainment education. He must be close to 80 if not older. He has lectured in the meantime in South Africa and France, probably a hundred other places as well. When I took his course, he had only been at my school for 2 or 3 years, but he was a mesmerizing lecturer.

Mann was (to me) to anthropology sort of like Rufus Fears was known for with history, if anyone has ever heard him speak in person (too late now if you haven't, but there are videos online). Fears was just amazing, though I never was at his school. He talked like an Oklahoma hick, but had that magic combination of expertise and passion for his subject that grabbed you with fascination, even if you have never cared one whit about ancient Greece or ancient Rome.

I only took Anthropology on a whim, since we were required to take at least three semesters in humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. I took the Anthropology course as one of my social sciences requirements, and got Dr. Mann by pure chance. I was flip-a-coin close to tossing all my plans and studying anthropology for the rest of my college years, Dr. Mann was THAT good. If I could have had him for the rest of my time there, I probably would have.

I probably would never have met my wife if I had stuck with anthropology. In July 1974, I would probably have been on a dig at Oldupai (Masai pronunciation, also known to Anglos as "Olduvai" ) Gorge in the Ngorongoro area of Tanzania instead of playing music in a cabaret in West Berlin, so it all turned out for the best, I guess. But anyone who has ever heard Dr. Mann give a lecture would know what I am talking about. When he gave a lecture, you felt as if there were no subject more interesting or important in all the world.

[RichardRay]

80. All economics from Ed Whitelaw at U of Oregon

Macro, Urban, Housing, Pacific Northwest, Banking & the Fed

[GumboYaYa]

81. Metaphysics, it changed my life for the better

[Maxheader]

83. Anatomy and physiology..Emporia

Fluid power...Pittsburg..

It was the instructors that made the class work...