Earthquake! (and other Cornell classes)

Last spring, I applied to be a student blogger for Life on the Hill. I was rejected (their loss, right?) but as part of the application I had to throw together a few blog posts about different topics. Here's what I wrote about my "least favorite thing about Cornell." With classes starting a week from today, I believe it's appropriate.

Ask Cornell students what they dislike most about life on the hill, and there’s a good chance they’ll complain either about the weather or a Cornell phenomenon called prelims – night exams that occur several times over the course of the semester.

Not so for me. As a Connecticut native, I don’t mind the cold or the snow – in fact, it snows less in Ithaca than in my hometown. And as for prelims? As a Government major I have few exams and lots of papers, which is what I prefer. It’s safe to say that my workload is less than what my friends in the College of Engineering have.

So, what bugs me most about Cornell? Funky class names.

Cornell is one of the world’s best universities, but its departments often craft bizarre names for classes in an effort to pique students’ interest. For example, take Plant Sciences 201: “Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds.” Earth and Atmospheric Science 122 is “Earthquake!” while Physics 201 is titled “Why is the Sky Blue?”

Some of these eye-catching names appear on my own transcript. The catchy name of my freshman writing seminar (“Is the US a Democracy?”) was enough to convince me to take the class, but imagine my disappointment when most of the semester was spent studying basic political theory. One of the best classes I’ve taken at Cornell was Government 366, “American Political Theory from Madison to Malcolm X,” but the course loses some luster when my transcript reads “Am Pol Th Madis To Malcolm X.” The winner, however, is a Spanish class I’m taking this semester: “Early Hispanic Modernities: Readings in Medieval and Early Modern Iberian and Spanish-American Literatures.” I can’t wait to see how that one gets abbreviated on my transcript.

I understand how Cornell’s diverse selection of departments and classes creates competition for students. (See here for a full list of academic fields.) I have no doubt that more people enroll in English 316 with its name “Beasts, Bodies, and Boundaries” than would if it were called “Medieval English Literature.” However, when potential employers skim my transcript to see what I’ve learned from four years at an Ivy League college, I can’t help but think they’ll scratch their heads at some of these class names.

Perhaps I’m the only one who dislikes catchy course titles. Part of me wishes more departments were like Mathematics, which gives its classes no-nonsense names like “Calculus II,” “Calculus III,” and “Linear Algebra.” Much has been made of mathematicians’ lack of creativity, but in this case I believe it’s a good trait.

In a phone interview last month for a summer job, I was mortified when my potential boss asked me about “Dinosaurs,” a one-credit course I took in the fall. As it turns out, this Congressional staffer was actually highly interested in paleontology and we discussed theories of extinction for several minutes. Though I haven’t heard back from him since, I’ll admit that in this one case, taking interesting-sounding classes may have helped. Regardless, these fun-sounding class names still annoy me. I’d much rather take an interesting class than a course with a cool name.

Note: Incidentally, my classes this semester all have boring names like "Major Seminar" and "Translating Spanish."