School Rants Thread!

[TotallyUncool]

They aren't bad at all. As I recall, (at least in the liberal arts/humanities) the biggest difference is that most 200 level classes still tend to be on the level of intro and background, while 300 level classes get into more depth/analysis/serious work. The assignments are a little more demanding, but for the most part, the difference with 300 level classes is that they give you more to sink your teeth into.

[321BreakinOut]

I wish i put more effort into this semester Y_Y; It's so hard keeping a job ad trying to focus on school ._.

[Bakajo Nono]

My professor is so amazing xD

He was on quite a roll the day before yesterday. These are considerably less hilarious out of context, but still:
"Did you guys see Triumph of the Will? It takes a triumph of the will to get through that film..."
"Stop checking your fuhrer-book notifications!"
"What's wrong with outlet? He's having a bad day."
"I wake up looking like Old Nuremberg..."

[TotallyUncool]

I remember going to a screening of Triumph of the Will after I'd spent the afternoon seeing the Talking Heads play live at UCLA and drinking Dos Equis -- or at least I remember the first few minutes of the film, since I fell asleep pretty quickly...

[Bakajo Nono]

Say this in Japanese-accented deadpan, and you have my awesome Japanese Ethics professor's quote of the day: "Please re-read the syllabus carefully so that I don't have to change your diapers..."

Other golden quotes:
Her explaining how Shakamuni Buddha's disciples would come to him when they wronged: "They'd say something like 'Oh Shakamuni! I accidentally had intercourse with a donkey! I fell and my thing just went into the donkey!' and then Shakamuni would be like 'Okay, you're forgiven.'"

She showed us a picture of a Buddhist temple in Japan that had a quote from Buddha and a quote from Lady Gaga's Born this Way in Japanese side by side and she said: "You may think this is insulting to Buddha... or to Lady Gaga if that's how you feel about Buddha..."

Anyway, I like it when professors are amusing xD

[TotallyUncool]

She does sound pretty awesome!

[erilaz]

"Did you guys see Triumph of the Will? It takes a triumph of the will to get through that film..."

It's a visually impressive film, but political speeches are political speeches, so....

On the flip side, I found Riefenstahl's Olympia, the documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, completely engrossing, even though sports generally bore me.

If you want a truly grueling chore, try reading Mein Kampf. There are some interesting bits -- where Hitler is telling about his early history, how his Anti-Semitism developed -- but most of it is Tedious with a capital T.

[Bakajo Nono]

I'm going to utilize this thread to just quote my ethics professor every week xD

"Stand at the bottom of the Sears Tower... or the Whatchu-Talkin'-Bout, Willis Tower... and bask in its glory." (I nearly cried at this omg xD perfect deadpan delivery)

[Celedam]

Depends on the class.

One 300-level class that I remember was Modern Hawai'ian and Polynesian Literature, or something like that. (It was the '90s at the height of the PC movement, so my school had a Race or Ethnicity requirement, and that class was the least offensive I could find that would still count toward my degree.)

Let me check…

…yeah, here's the guy. He moved from Michigan back to Washington State, but he seems to still be teaching essentially the same courses.

http://depts.washington.edu/aes/faculty/ssumida.html

That, plus a lot of Melville. It wasn't particularly hard, and he was much nicer than most professors at that level, but it was a LOT of reading. At the end of the term, he invited us to his house for a luau.

I think the biggest difference you'll find is that 300 and 400-level classes are much smaller and more specialized, with more class participation and direct interaction with the professor, so you can't bullshit your way through like you might in a 100 or 200-level class with packed auditorium lectures and indifferent teaching assistants.

EDIT: Oops, I didn't realize the thread was so old.

[Pavlova]

Random venting:

I had sigend up to 15 credits originally: 6 credits of Japanese, 3 of Japanese History, 3 of South-East Asian History and 3 of Anthropology of China.

Anthropology of China was easily the one class I was most exited for.

And than it was cancelled, and will not be given again this year.

So I had to find something else to fill in my schedule, and the only thing that would fit was Chinese Cinema.

I hate art classes, I suck at them, and I find them beyond boring. Not that that I dislike litterature or cinema, I just hate analyzing it. Not that I think analyzing it is stupid nor do I look down on it, I just ... I just find it DREADFUL to do.

But I still signed up for that class thinking "it can't be THAT bad. it's just ONE class. you survived to plenty of litterature classes already".

oh god, today I forgot my laptop and had to actually listen to the class and... god I don't know, I wish the professor would give the class in English or something, at least, her french is so bad, most of us can only make out one word out of three, it's useless. it takes forever to move forward.

hate the topic, hate the approach, hate having to listen to the prof paiiinnfully uh uh talking uh her wayyyy through uh this uh class uh uh because uh she shouldn't eerrr ummm be teaching ummm at a.. umm friggin french university.

... i usually do well with accents and can do with a prof not 100% mastering the language but that much, it's a serious hindrance to our teaching.

also one class I got in slightly late because their was a power outage in the subway and we always do a quick test at the beginning of class so after class i tried to ask her if i could do it then, since we're such a small group (maybe 10-15 people) and it took me a good, lenghty 10-15 minutes to get her to understand what I was asking. I just wanted to revert back to english but I felt it would be insulting and I'm not even sure we're allowed to.