It’s that time of semester again: class registration. I won’t be registering for classes, but I’d love to give my unsolicited advice about class registration while I still can. Underclasspeople, please register for a class outside of the discipline(s) you’re comfortable in.
I, a mathematics and philosophy double major, for instance, discovered my real love of Chinese history through taking Ancient Chinese Medical Tradition my junior year, despite the fact that I took that class on a whim and considered dropping it or swapping it out for another philosophy course (Wittgenstein). My first semester, I took an intro philosophy course (Ethics, Justice, Society) even though I had never been exposed to philosophy before. While EJS wasn’t incredibly life changing, it was good enough that I decided to register for just one more philosophy class (Environment, Justice, Knowledge) in order to pad my math-heavy schedule. This is the class that haunted me, making me realize not only my natural affinity for philosophy, but that I was good at it and that I could actually major in it if I wanted to. While I didn’t declare my double major for another year after this class, it was this class, which I only registered for after a series of coincidences, that changed my college career.
In registering for classes outside of your known interests, you can be motivated by filling some graduation requirement (like general education requirements arts and humanities (AH), history/social science (HSS), math/natural science (MNS), quantitative (Q), writing intensive (W), culture (C), and religion (R)). Through this, however, find a class with a topic you are interested in, and you might end up finding 1) a major, 2) a better major for you than the one you already have, 3) a potential minor, 4) a potential double major, and/or 5) just a good, fun class.
Look at classes outside of your own department! Even if you think you know your major. Even if you know your major. Even if you love your major. Even if you’re already busy with classes. Taking classes outside of your discipline colors your liberal arts education at the College. In the Chinese history classes I’ve taken, I have been able to see incredible overlaps (in Chinese philosophy and math) that I would not have noticed otherwise. I even dedicated two sections of my I.S. to ancient Chinese mathematics and Daoism — an avenue I almost certainly would not have taken had I not registered for my original Chinese medicine class. Taking classes outside of my disciplines has opened my mind to just how much there is to learn, and how much I’m interested in learning about.
Mel Griffith, a Viewpoints Editor for the Voice, can be reached for comment at MGriffith16@wooster.edu.