<p>A class that helps you to be a better parent so you don’t screw up your kids. Intro to Psych,
Child Development, Intro to Philosophy, Personality Theory. Music and art appreciation, if you have none, is also good.</p>
<p>I know wonderful people with business and science degrees who are the worst parents with the most troubled kids.</p>
<p>haven’t read the thread so maybe these have been suggested: ‘deviance and conformity’-- should be in your psychology or sociology department. another would be ‘structural inequality’ in sociology. or…a voice class in your music dept.</p>
<p>Shootingsilver, I think you’ve got all the basics covered with AP Stats.</p>
<p>I also thought about psychology, like parent1986, and an anthropology or sociology class to understand that people live productive lives outside your own little bubble.</p>
<p>I loved, loved my Asian art history course, and only wish I’d taken more art history.</p>
<p>The most useful class I took was North American Geography. It had a reputation as a Mickey Mouse class (do they still have that designation?); it met from 7 - 10 pm on Thursday nights, and was accompanied by a lot of socializing afterwards. It wasn’t a “hard” class. But it was incredibly, incredibly useful.</p>
<p>I’ve pondered this the last couple days and haven’t thought of much… what wonderfully useful information, exactly, was I supposed to learn in stats? I took college level stats, and other than learning that statistics are very sensitive to many variables and generally aren’t to be trusted unless you can see and verify the methods used to obtain them, I can’t think of anything in particular I got from that class-- and that’s not something you need to take a class about to know. I took high level poli sci theory courses that some stats background was useful for, but it wasn’t entirely necessary either. What didn’t I learn that I was supposed to?</p>
<p>I agree with frazzled2thecore, Hunt, SlitheyTove and geezermom: Pick a professor that’s famous on campus, both for the quality of the work in the field and for the quality of the lectures. Since you are at NYU, and that criterion doesn’t narrow the field enough, then I’d suggest that you make a list of such professors, look at the topics of the courses they are offering, ask friends who have taken their courses what it is that makes them memorable, and then just go with the course you prefer, out of the available set.</p>
<p>Although–wait–parent1986, there is a class that will prevent you from screwing up your kids? Well, that’s about 35 years too late for me!</p>
<p>Romantic Poets. What a wonderful class that was - totally useless in a business and career sense, but what beautiful, beautiful poetry.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As a chemistry major who married a chemistry major AND who raised a smart, beautiful, and successful daughter (who will soon graduate with a business degree and a job): I resent this stereotype. Bad parenting occurs everywhere. Troubled kids happen to humanities/philosophy/music majors as well.</p>
<p>Your college classes are no indicator of future parenting success.</p>
<p>I did take a logic course freshman year & found it helpful. Also found an advanced writing course with a GOOD prof invaluable. He was one of those rare folks who helped you perfect YOUR writing style instead of insisting you write like the prof.</p>
<p>I got my business writing from my typing course in middle (used to be called intermediate) school. My kids never took a business writing course & I don’t feel they missed anything.</p>
<p>S took a sailing course he enjoyed. D is supposed to be auditing an architecture course.</p>
<p>Also, I never regretted my Downhill Skiing class :)</p>
<p>When I recommend business writing, I think of teh course a bit differently. Here is an example of a good course in business writing:
“The emphasis in this course will be on technical, business, and other forms of career-oriented writing. Topics include audience analysis, style analysis, grammar, punctuation, and research. Assignments adapted to fit the background and interests of each student include business correspondence, mechanism description, process description, formal proposal, magazine article, and formal report.”</p>
<p>Also, if going to grad school a course for academic writing:
“The goal of this course is for the student to gain greater awareness and control over his writing for a variety of academic and professional purposes. Students who wish to improve their college writing and those who plan to attend law or graduate school, teach, or write professionally would be well served by the course. We will focus in particular on clarity in writing, argumentative techniques, the demands of different genres, and developing a personal voice”.</p>
<p>I also was glad to have taken jewelrymaking in college and gymnastics in law school. They helped round out my education. The gymnastics helped keep me flexible and release tension. The jewelrymaking helped give me a better appreciation for the hard work the goes into metalwork.</p>
<p>Somewhere early in your college career take something outside your comfort zone … hopefully the experience will motivate you to challenge yourself and to seek a wide breadth of academics/experiences while at school. For me as a all-math no-english engineer I took a greek history course with 10 hard-core liberal arts majors and worked my butt off to get a B … and to this day it is one of the hand full of grades I am most proud off … and it also the experience that convinced me experimenting was the way to go.</p>
<h1>68, so true, your comment. We all know the jokes about the children of psychiatrists!</h1>
<p>A question about stepping out of comfort zones - after seeing this suggestion come up several times, I’m beginning to think I have a blind spot here, because I can’t think of what the limits of my comfort zone might be - a sort of “I don’t know what I don’t know” situation.</p>
<p>I realize this varies by the individual and not just by the major, but just so we have somewhere to start, any suggestions for a film and Spanish double major who’s a liberal Christian?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ll answer this question in terms of what I hope to get out of a stats class: what I’d like to learn is exactly what you mentioned - how to verify the methods used to obtain statistics, and how to crunch raw data when necessary. I mentioned upthread I hope to go into documentary filmmaking, and I want the tools to be able to take apart statistics in detail to see if they reflect any sort of reality.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call it impractical; it’s an important building block of a basic liberal arts education (which, unfortunately, seems to be lacking at many colleges). I’d much rather take Art History than some new age, how-do-you-feel-about-that class.</p>
<p>I enjoyed Identifying Wildflowers, the Botany class I took as an elective. At first I could barely name the common dandelion, but I learned how to identify 80% to 90% of wild plants placed in front of me on my lab table. </p>
<p>So take some course you know very little about but have always wanted to try to master.</p>
<p>I’d like to offer a corollary to the suggestion to take the course offered by the fantastic professor:</p>
<p>DO NOT take a course with a terrible professor, even if you think the subject would be valuable to you. For example, I think the idea of taking stats is good, but if the stats prof is awful don’t do it! You’ll be sorry! (Of course, sometimes you might have to do this to satisfy requirements, unfortunately.)</p>
<p>^ and be realistic. I’m a night owl. My 8:00 a.m. trampoline class was not realistic. By the time I woke up, it was over – and I had attended it!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That sounds awesome. Seriously.</p>