<p>In your opinion, what are five college courses that would benefit anyone? </p>
<p>I’m a Junior in college, and will be able to fit in a significant amount of elective time my Senior year. I’m considering what kinds of courses I’d like to take if I have the chance (and if they fit around my last major requirements). I’m at an LAC, so I can take classes from any discipline. </p>
<p>I would love to hear what people think are valuable courses, even if they’re outside the discipline of one’s major. </p>
<p>For myself, I’m considering the following:</p>
<p>Computer Science: While I’m literate in Word, Excel and all those lovely little tools thanks to jobs in office settings, I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to have computer skills that go beyond running simple applications.</p>
<p>More language: I’ve already taken three semesters of Italian, and I’m thinking I may continue on with that, or try out a few semesters of French. Or Spanish, which would be more practical here in California, but either French or Spanish would be useful if I wind up with the PeaceCorps.</p>
<p>Digital Imaging: For some of the same reasons as above, though more oriented towards design and Photoshop, which I’m ok at.</p>
<p>Other courses I’m considering range from Intro classes in Legal Studies to Sailing (because, hey, one day I might be a pirate!), but what would YOU add?</p>
<p>I am taking mostly electives and am taking random history classes in different regions of the planet I am not very well educated about so that I can become more culturally literate. So far I have studied China and Vietnam, and now I am focusing on the Middle East and Britain. I’m also taking literature, which I haven’t done since high school. If I had time I’d take some economics. And some womens studies, just because I think it sounds interesting.</p>
<p>Personally, I think everyone should take at least one poli sci class, but that may be because I am a poli sci major. :P</p>
<p>That’s a great idea that I had overlooked! Our Career Planning & Resources office recommends that all Seniors take Personal Finance before they leave.</p>
<p>I definitely agree on finance, both personal and corporate. Everyone should know how to understand stock quotes in order to make informed economic decisions.</p>
<p>U.S. history
Greek mythology
As much literature as possible (shakespeare, british romantics, 20th century american lit I.e. hemingway/faulkner/ t.s. eliot to name a few
Something random and different to what you would normally consider (women’s studies if ur a male, black studies if ur white,
world religions esp learn about the big 3 islam, judaism, christianity)</p>
<p>I’m thinking about taking a few language courses. Probably languages in the Scandinavian department (Not sure which yet) as well as more Programming languages, probably will do Python (as Lisp, Java, C++ are taught taking mandatory courses for my major) and maybe some other ones that I think will be useful.</p>
that’s a really messed up view of computer science. maybe you need to read the course description… computer science isn’t about computer skills. it’s about discrete math and logic. computer science is learning programming language and applying it… “running simple applications” is the most you’re going to do in an intro comp sci class.</p>
<p>For me it is:
-Personal/practical finance course. Many college students don’t even know how to balance a check book or pay bills. You should take at least an intro class to both this and other financial necessities- stocks, bonds, IRAs, etc.
-Foreign language- particularly something more practical like Spanish, German, or Mandarin- depending on what type of work you want to go into. It is ridiculously that we don’t learn multiple languages like the rest of the world.
-Writing class. You would think that college students would know how to formulate a basic research paper or be able to put their projects into written format, but sadly this is often not the case. Writing skills are critical to almost every non-manual labor job.
-Logic class. Really helpful no matter what field you are going into.
-In-depth American Government class. I cannot tell you how many college-aged people I know still believe that the president makes laws. Many haven’t a clue what Congress does. That is very sad because this is something that affects their daily lives.</p>
<p>Rymd- I think that your reaction to me is a pretty good reason for me to take Comp Sci. Essentially you’ve proven ignorant someone who has already admitted to not taking classes in that discipline. So congrats to you, I guess? Knowing how important computer science is, but not being able to communicate effectively about it, is a pretty good reason IMO to take comp sci. Secondly, I’m pretty sure we mean different things when we say “running simple applications,” because we are not speaking the same language, although we’re both speaking English.</p>
<p>Finally, for anyone interested, here is what Intro Computer Science entails (at my school, at least):
This course has two central aims, each with a number of associated objectives:</p>
<pre><code>* Aim 1: To give students the tools to take a computational problem through the process of design, implementation, documentation, and testing.
Objectives:
o Break a broad problem down into specific subproblems
o Write an algorithm to solve a specific problem, and then translate that algorithm into a program in a specific programming language (Python)
o Write clear, concise documentation
o Develop test cases that reveal programming bugs
Aim 2: To give students an understanding of the breadth of Computer Science as a discipline and how it exists in the world.
Objectives:
o Identify applications of computer science in society
o Describe the big questions in computer science
o Describe the relationship between a number of major sub-disciplines within computer science, including functional and imperative programming, computer architecture, and theoretical computer science
</code></pre>
<p>@Eternal- I’m not going to lie, I don’t understand why any of that is really necessary to people outside of programmers or other computer technical fields. </p>
<p>Word, Excel, Publisher, etc- yes, those are necessary. Knowing how to write a computer algorithm? Not so much.</p>
<p>But the point is that a programming class will teach you almost nothing about computers, at least as far as general use goes. So in that sense, you’re not really understanding its importance. “Simple applications” are programs that do very few things and have very little machinery behind them - that’s what most programming classes consist of. By contrast, Excel and Word are incredibly complex.</p>
<p>If you’re not going into CS as a career, the main benefit is in how you think, not unlike a formal logic class. I think the logic class would be more useful though.</p>