5 Really Weird College Courses

I remember my friends at school thinking it was really funny when we found out that there was a college somewhere in the North East that taught guitar as a college course. At that time the Beatles had just come out and everybody and his brother was learning guitar. We just thought it was really stupid that a college would teach that as a regular course.

Little did we imagine that several years later, colleges around the country would begin teaching courses that were so far removed from reality that you just have to shake your head. If you're anything like me, when you see this very short list from TIME magazine, you'll shake your head and wonder how on earth things got to this state in education.

Let's start with this one:

“United Kingdom: To Hogwarts, Harry: An Intensive Study of Harry Potter Through the British Isles”
Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, M.I.

While this course may be interesting, I don't think it really prepares one for the world outside of school. The course is just like it sounds. Students read the Potter series and take test on them. The great thing about this course is that students take a 10 day trip to England to visit locations that helped inspire some of the places mentioned in the books. No doubt this one will be impressive on a resume.

“Wasting Time on the Internet”
The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, P.A.
Department: English

According to the professor who teaches this course:

 “We’re reading and writing more than we have in a generation, but we are reading and writing differently—skimming, parsing, grazing, bookmarking, forwarding, retweeting, reblogging, and spamming language—in ways that aren’t yet recognized as literary.”

Yeah, those Youtube comments about how bad a certain video artist is are a sheer joy to read. No doubt a bound volume will be out soon.

“Politicizing Beyoncé”
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Department: Women & Gender Studies

It seems that, lately, Beyonce has done a pretty good job of politicizing herself given the backlash againt her Super Bowl performance.

Talk about a pretentious take on a so-so pop star! This course takes the position that the self proclaimed diva's music can be used as a "blueprint for social change."

“The Sociology of Miley Cyrus”
Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Department: Sociology

According to the course description, this course takes a look at Miley Cirus and:

“the interplay among race, class, and gender, as well as taking a feminist critique of media and sociology of media approach to the Miley ‘problem.’”

So, let me get this straight. People are going to study the antics of Miley Cyrus and extrapolate that information out to try and understand society as we know it today? And since when is this under-talented, self inflated trash star someone worth studying?

“The Art of Walking”
Centre College in Danville, K.Y.
Department: Environmental Studies

I'm going to cut this course some slack because it might actually be interesting and educational. I should explain that the course is not really about the act of walking.

Students in this course, take walking tours of all sorts of places and focus not so much on what they see on those walks, but what they experience.

The course involves:

"walking tours through parks, gardens, museums and even cemeteries to get students to “stop focusing on constantly doing and concentrate more on simply experiencing”

Where the heck were courses like this when I was in college? Now, I did take a "History of Cinema" course once and all those hour I spent at the theater as a youth really paid off. My wasted youth landed me a grade average of 110! I not only aced the final, but I also got a 10 point bonus question right, but I hardly think my addiction to movies prepared me for anything more than sitting and watching while trying to tune out the idiot behind me who won't stop talking on his phone.

What college courses would you ace if they offered them at McNeese?

There is a complete list of odd college courses on the Time Magazine website.