Survey: Our Favorite College Classes (And Why)

We’ve teamed up with our blog buddies to bring you a series of weekly surveys where we tell you all about or favorite college moments, memories, and words of wisdom. Every week we’ll ask a new question and show you what they had to say.

This week we asked, “What was your favorite college class and why?” Here are their responses!

My favorite class at NYU was also the class where I worked the hardest! I took a course called The Constitution and Communities of Color. It was taught by Elizabeth Ouyang, a renown immigration lawyer in New York City. It required piles of reading every class, which I gladly did because the course information was so interesting. She would go into lawyer mode during our class sessions, where we would have to pick sides on cases we read and then argued them. I felt like this class spurred my learning with social justice – this class and the professor were the reason why I felt inspired to add on a Public Policy minor to my coursework.

- Pamela, Redesign Revolution

My favorite college course was called “Sublimation and Desire.” The entire class revolved around one theme: all art (writing, painting, sculpture, etc.) is the outcome of our suppressed desires being sublimated into another tangible form. Think of it like “I’m gay in the 1700s, I can’t hook up with dudes because of social/religious restrictions so I’m going to subconsciously turn that desire into a masterpiece.” The subject matter was always interesting, but what I loved most about it was that it really showed me how to analyze difficult texts (like Freud, Nietzsche, and even the Bible) and by the end of the course I could actually tell that I was smarter.

- Steven, Travel Freak

I was a complete and utter school nerd…like one of those people who had a pang of sadness when college was over so I enjoyed a lot of my classes (although I can hardly remember anything about them now)! But, looking back there is one class that really sticks out in my mind: Gender, Culture, and Sexuality. The course had nothing to do with my degree and it was all about how gender is culturally constructed in different societies. The professor was on the verge of making us feel uncomfortable and I found everything about the course fascinating.

- Talia, Bite Size Wellness

I took a course that was basically an exercise in long-form, New Yorker-style profiles. We read tons of iconic pieces that informed our writing, and the class culminated with doing a 20 page profile on a subject of our choosing. It was a ton of work, but one of the best learning experiences (and best professors) I’ve ever had!

- Kristin, Haute Talk

My first-year Drama class was pretty great, because I made an easy A by writing a one-act play early in the class that was performed at the end of the year. Thing is, it would only be considered a “one-act play” within that Drama class. In reality, it was nothing more than an extended comedy sketch. A pretty moronic extended comedy sketch. In fact, it was such a moronic extended comedy sketch that I was really embarrassed for myself even as it was being performed. I kept waiting for somebody to point out how awful it was, but instead–as noted–I received an A. That’s when I realized I had to change to a better college.

- JR, Celebrity Watchdog

Our editor’s favorite?

“History of Atomic Power” – as if that comes as a shock (you all know I’m a huge Cold War history nerd!) It was a really interesting advanced history course that talked all about the development of nuclear weapons from the first atomic bomb to present. I didn’t think it was possible to be more fascinated by the Cold War, but that class made the impossible happen!

- Brittney

Tell us your favorite college classes in the comments!