But even more so I regret not attending when Vincent Price came to my campus to do a one-man show on Oscar Wilde. He took the time afterwards to go meet some students. I could have meet Vincent Price!!!!
Geology, because it would be very useful in my discipline. Every time I mention a type of "rock", I wonder whether it's properly called a "mineral" instead, and whether anyone in the class is silently correcting me.
Also Anglo-Saxon, because who wouldn't want to write a final essay about anything you like with a vocabulary almost entirely suitable for writing about killing a thousand monsters in a mead hall? Plus the Angla-Saxonists were all nuts so I could have been the sane one of the group for the duration of that class...
We're not nuts. We like a good drink every now and again, just like any other academic. We just require a little more monster to make that drink hit the spot.
Welding. I didn't take it in high school 'cuz I wanted to avoid the assmonkeys that populated the vo-tech classes, but I learned the basics of welding in a college art class, and think I would've liked it quite a bit.
+1 on that, PG. My mom was definitely right about that one. (But she was wrong about Latin--I never took it despite her vigorous protests, and I don't regret it for an instant.)
I'm in the opposite situation. I screwed around in undergrad for FAR longer than I should have, partly because the first four or five years I was there, I wasn't following a degree plan so much as signing up for any damned thing that looked interesting. So I can't think of anything I wished I taken but didn't... but I can think of a whole lot of stuff I took that I really could have lived without, and the omission of which would have allowed me to get out on a reasonably normal schedule. That said, I like being able to reach into that mental bag and pull out something from Anthropology and Science Fiction, 18th and 19th Century Military History, Restoration Literature, Psychosexual Development, Sociology of the Black Church in America, History of Islam, Anthropological Linguistics, or any of the five languages I took as an undergrad.
Yes. And statistics. I may well fill in the latter using Khan Academy and/or a MOOC one of these days (we did have a statistical literacy requirement at my college, but it could be passed by taking a test, and there were quick statistics-for-dummies sessions that allowed a reasonably intelligent/math-literate person --which I am -- to pass. I still would have benefited, and would benefit, from a full course).
I did take calculus (BC, after taking the AB AP and getting a 4), and got a C-. I'd still like to go back and master that some day, just to show I can. Maybe as a keeping-your-brain-alive-in-retirement exercise. Except that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to afford to retire, and I'd also like to tackle Greek, and perhaps Hebrew. Ah, well; I definitely don't have to figure that one out for a while.
Yes. And statistics. I may well fill in the latter using Khan Academy and/or a MOOC one of these days (we did have a statistical literacy requirement at my college, but it could be passed by taking a test, and there were quick statistics-for-dummies sessions that allowed a reasonably intelligent/math-literate person --which I am -- to pass. I still would have benefited, and would benefit, from a full course).
I did take calculus (BC, after taking the AB AP and getting a 4), and got a C-. I'd still like to go back and master that some day, just to show I can. Maybe as a keeping-your-brain-alive-in-retirement exercise. Except that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to afford to retire, and I'd also like to tackle Greek, and perhaps Hebrew. Ah, well; I definitely don't have to figure that one out for a while.
I failed to take courses in anything I currently teach. As my career shifted away from what I studied, I willingly embraced that change, but I wish I had taken graduate-level courses in what I teach now because it would certainly make writing lecture notes and researching in these areas easier by providing a base from which to start. I wouldn't feel that every class I teach is also a learning experience for me.
OH, and I wish I'd taken a Survival course. That seems like it would come in handy for the apocalypse ahead.
World Religions. Even if your youth was spent as an atheist-agnostic where you ignored this completely, when you get older, and you have kids, you tend to become more introspective about these sorts of things. Hard to figure out what you should read first and then where to branch out, if you're starting from scratch on your own.
I'm still in grad school, so I may get around to doing this (who am I kidding, probably not): Hebrew. It would work really well with some of the translations of Old Testament stuff that's in my field.
I need to take an acting class urgently; develop some sort of persona that students find less...intimidating than my default lecturing self. I am told I'm very bad at hiding my emotions when something a class (or a student) does exasperates me, and that's not good.
Coming to this thread sort of late, but: I wish I'd taken more American history, or political science, or French.
I was kind of sort of interested in all of the above, but I'd decided when I was 12 that I was going to double major in music and theater, and my passionate devotion to those subjects (plus all the extracurriculars I did in both fields between ages 5 and 18) is almost certainly what got me accepted to college.
And everyone around me, parents and teachers and all, just seemed to assume that if I couldn't make it in the arts, my fallback would be some kind of English Lit/Creative Writing thing where I spent half my time reading Shakespeare and the other half deluding myself that I was e.e. cummings. Because that's what artsy girls do.
In fact, I was really good at French, and completely fascinated by both American history and the history of political systems. I just never really got around to doing anything about any of those fields because I was in rehearsal all the time. In hindsight, I should have gotten around to it.
(I did graduate with a double major in music and theater, and now I do financial aid for a performing arts college which turned out to be the perfect job for me. But I'll never know what else might have been the perfect job for me if I'd studied something else.)
What do you regret not having taken?
Spanish.
ReplyDeleteBut even more so I regret not attending when Vincent Price came to my campus to do a one-man show on Oscar Wilde. He took the time afterwards to go meet some students. I could have meet Vincent Price!!!!
I agree, that's far more important than Spanish. There are lots of romance languages; there's only one Vincent Price.
DeleteI could still learn Spanish, but Vincent Price is gone.
DeleteNot as long as you have a Netflix account.
DeletePhilosophy. I encourage all my students to take it.
ReplyDeleteThe Fifth.
ReplyDeleteGeology, because rocks are really neat.
ReplyDeleteGeology, because it would be very useful in my discipline. Every time I mention a type of "rock", I wonder whether it's properly called a "mineral" instead, and whether anyone in the class is silently correcting me.
DeleteI don't think you need to worry. When you say "rock" they're probably thinking "band" or "party" or "rave."
DeleteI don't think you need to worry. When you say "rock" they're probably thinking "band" or "party" or "rave."
DeleteAlso Anglo-Saxon, because who wouldn't want to write a final essay about anything you like with a vocabulary almost entirely suitable for writing about killing a thousand monsters in a mead hall? Plus the Angla-Saxonists were all nuts so I could have been the sane one of the group for the duration of that class...
ReplyDeleteWe're not nuts. We like a good drink every now and again, just like any other academic. We just require a little more monster to make that drink hit the spot.
Delete@Dreamer: if you're anywhere near NC, I can hook you up with a good mead-maker.
DeleteThe easy way out.
ReplyDeleteActually, I am pretty happy with my path. Except my parents wouldn't let me go to Shea Stadium to see the Beatles OR to Woodstock. :-(
ReplyDeleteBiochemistry. Seriously, I never, ever took biochemistry. (I'm a chemist.)
ReplyDeleteI took philosophy, but the only philosopher on campus was an incompetent. I took German instead, and voice training.
Welding. I didn't take it in high school 'cuz I wanted to avoid the assmonkeys that populated the vo-tech classes, but I learned the basics of welding in a college art class, and think I would've liked it quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteTyping. Augh!
ReplyDeleteYeah, typing was the most useful class I ever took in high school.
Delete+1 on that, PG. My mom was definitely right about that one. (But she was wrong about Latin--I never took it despite her vigorous protests, and I don't regret it for an instant.)
DeleteI'm in the opposite situation. I screwed around in undergrad for FAR longer than I should have, partly because the first four or five years I was there, I wasn't following a degree plan so much as signing up for any damned thing that looked interesting. So I can't think of anything I wished I taken but didn't... but I can think of a whole lot of stuff I took that I really could have lived without, and the omission of which would have allowed me to get out on a reasonably normal schedule. That said, I like being able to reach into that mental bag and pull out something from Anthropology and Science Fiction, 18th and 19th Century Military History, Restoration Literature, Psychosexual Development, Sociology of the Black Church in America, History of Islam, Anthropological Linguistics, or any of the five languages I took as an undergrad.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a course in time management and discipline would have been nice, tho.
DeleteEconomics.
ReplyDeleteYes. And statistics. I may well fill in the latter using Khan Academy and/or a MOOC one of these days (we did have a statistical literacy requirement at my college, but it could be passed by taking a test, and there were quick statistics-for-dummies sessions that allowed a reasonably intelligent/math-literate person --which I am -- to pass. I still would have benefited, and would benefit, from a full course).
DeleteI did take calculus (BC, after taking the AB AP and getting a 4), and got a C-. I'd still like to go back and master that some day, just to show I can. Maybe as a keeping-your-brain-alive-in-retirement exercise. Except that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to afford to retire, and I'd also like to tackle Greek, and perhaps Hebrew. Ah, well; I definitely don't have to figure that one out for a while.
Yes. And statistics. I may well fill in the latter using Khan Academy and/or a MOOC one of these days (we did have a statistical literacy requirement at my college, but it could be passed by taking a test, and there were quick statistics-for-dummies sessions that allowed a reasonably intelligent/math-literate person --which I am -- to pass. I still would have benefited, and would benefit, from a full course).
DeleteI did take calculus (BC, after taking the AB AP and getting a 4), and got a C-. I'd still like to go back and master that some day, just to show I can. Maybe as a keeping-your-brain-alive-in-retirement exercise. Except that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to afford to retire, and I'd also like to tackle Greek, and perhaps Hebrew. Ah, well; I definitely don't have to figure that one out for a while.
I failed to take courses in anything I currently teach. As my career shifted away from what I studied, I willingly embraced that change, but I wish I had taken graduate-level courses in what I teach now because it would certainly make writing lecture notes and researching in these areas easier by providing a base from which to start. I wouldn't feel that every class I teach is also a learning experience for me.
ReplyDeleteOH, and I wish I'd taken a Survival course. That seems like it would come in handy for the apocalypse ahead.
Paleography. Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, more Latin. Kayaking. Photo.
ReplyDeleteWhat is paleography?
DeleteStudy of old stones? Just a scientific wild-assed guess.
DeletePaleography is the study of ancient writing. You're thinking paleogeology, CrayonEater.
DeleteThat makes sense. I do wish I could read Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mayan glyphs.
DeleteI wish I had taken Hittite. And Akkadian. Seriously.
ReplyDeleteOh, I wish I hadn't dropped German.
A World Religion class.
ReplyDeleteWorld Religions. Even if your youth was spent as an atheist-agnostic where you ignored this completely, when you get older, and you have kids, you tend to become more introspective about these sorts of things. Hard to figure out what you should read first and then where to branch out, if you're starting from scratch on your own.
ReplyDeleteBotany.
ReplyDeleteNo lie.
I'm still in grad school, so I may get around to doing this (who am I kidding, probably not): Hebrew. It would work really well with some of the translations of Old Testament stuff that's in my field.
ReplyDeleteI need to take an acting class urgently; develop some sort of persona that students find less...intimidating than my default lecturing self. I am told I'm very bad at hiding my emotions when something a class (or a student) does exasperates me, and that's not good.
ReplyDeletethis one girl's virginity during my freshman year
ReplyDeleteComing to this thread sort of late, but: I wish I'd taken more American history, or political science, or French.
ReplyDeleteI was kind of sort of interested in all of the above, but I'd decided when I was 12 that I was going to double major in music and theater, and my passionate devotion to those subjects (plus all the extracurriculars I did in both fields between ages 5 and 18) is almost certainly what got me accepted to college.
And everyone around me, parents and teachers and all, just seemed to assume that if I couldn't make it in the arts, my fallback would be some kind of English Lit/Creative Writing thing where I spent half my time reading Shakespeare and the other half deluding myself that I was e.e. cummings. Because that's what artsy girls do.
In fact, I was really good at French, and completely fascinated by both American history and the history of political systems. I just never really got around to doing anything about any of those fields because I was in rehearsal all the time. In hindsight, I should have gotten around to it.
(I did graduate with a double major in music and theater, and now I do financial aid for a performing arts college which turned out to be the perfect job for me. But I'll never know what else might have been the perfect job for me if I'd studied something else.)