Every college has it. The weird course. The bizarre experiment class that must have gotten okayed after the faculty meeting wine (and possibly weed) came out. The course everyone wants to take because it can’t possibly be studied for.

Liberal Arts schools are famous for these types of classes. Being a graduate of a Liberal A. myself, I made sure to take every weird course I could find. Every class with a half-written syllabus, opened ended final, or that was team-taught—I took. And let me tell you, those were some of the best wasted hours of my college career.

Wesleyan, one of the “Most Annoying Liberal Arts Schools” out there, currently has one of the best examples of a weird course I’ve heard in a long time. The reason this example is so good? It’s explanation is as pretentious as it’s description is redonkulous.

Course Name: Feet to the Fire: the Art and Science of Climate Change

Category: Biology

Cross Listed With: Dance

Description: As quoted by Gawker, the first lines of the course description are as follows: “Feet to the Fire is an intensive, interdisciplinary course that melds scientific and choreographic inquiry in pursuit of one of the most important topics facing society: climate change due to global warming”

Class Layout: “Classroom and laboratory sessions”, with a neighboring landfill acting as said laboratory. Read More »

Remember when you were in high school and you began to hunt for a college? As if you weren’t having enough trouble balancing those AP classes and inevitable girl drama and all of a sudden – BAM – here come like 10,000 books/essays/magazines/guides/counselors bombarding you with information on choosing the right college.

• Do you want big or small?

• Liberal arts? Science? Big city? Small campus? Close to home? Great sports teams?

Some books had statistics. Others had tests to place you in the right “type” of school. Still others were filled with advice from the students who went there. But where was the guarantee that any of this research would put us in a school that we loved, that would get us where we wanted to in life, and that would ultimately be our perfect fit?

According to some research over at the New York Times, the guarantee doesn’t exist. And if we do happen to find that perfect place, all that crap we researched does nothing to guide us. Read More »

Recently, Appalachian State University was in the news for winning a big football victory over Michigan. You may not have heard about it. It was also in the news because super smart Miss South Carolina talked about going there to continue her studies in “looking pretty, acting dumb”. You may not have heard about that, either.

But after today, you’ll never be in the dark about ASU ever again.

It’s not the biggest University in America, and it doesn’t have the biggest profile, but there’s something about Appalachian State that’s just…I don’t know…hot.