Free Republic

Approximately 20.4 million students headed off to college campuses in the United States last year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And of those 20.4 million, it's a good bet that, come course selection morning, about 20.3 million weighed just how fun a class in calculus or Renaissance poetry would actually be. Yes, it's no secret that some college courses can be rote and—dare we say—total snoozers. But the flip side is also true!Digging through the curriculum guides of American universities will reveal a treasure trove of fun, exciting, downright ridiculous-sounding courses. In other words: If you've ever...

Georgetown University is set to require “social justice” courses on the school’s history of racism and slavery for its undergraduate students, starting next semester. A subcommittee consisting of Georgetown students and faculty members that was tasked with redesigning the university’s “Engaging Diversity” core curriculum component recently announced the new “Pathways to Social Justice,” which forces students to take a number of courses surrounding diversity concepts, according to a report by Campus Reform. One of the courses included in the Pathways to Social Justice curriculum includes a class, titled, “University Seminar in Race, Power, and Justice at Georgetown,” according to the...

In April, the language-learning app Duolingo added its 40th language to its program arsenal: Yiddish. A couple of decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for a mainstream non-Jewish language program to offer an expansive, comprehensive course in Yiddish. But Duolingo’s Yiddish addition only serves to reflect the increased global interest in learning a language that once had as many as 12 million speakers. Ladino, a Romance language of Sephardic Jews still spoken by hundreds of thousands worldwide, has also garnered much interest in recent years. Ladino classes, both online and in-person, are widely available to prospective learners. But while...

New free AWS machine-learning training offers everyone the same curriculum that its employees use. Amazon has announced new, free courses in machine learning, offering all developers the same curriculum that it uses to train its own software engineers and data scientists. The company has over 30 online machine-learning courses, including video, labs, and documentation that have been used within Amazon for the past 20 years. The courses are split into four main tracks, catering to developers, data scientists, data platform engineers, and business types. Developers, for example, are offered courses that teach machine-learning building blocks, how to build machine-learning applications,...

Here's a tip for incoming college freshmen: Class doesn't have to be boring. If you plan your schedule carefully, you will have time for some fun. Course offerings change every semester, and many schools peg seminars and pop culture classes to current events. Chances are you'll have to take ancient history or molecular chemistry courses at some point, but you'll also have opportunities to explore topics you genuinely think are interesting, like zombie survival tactics or Harry Potter. Check out a few of the offerings at various institutions for the upcoming school year: * Lucid Dreaming, Oberlin Experimental College Oberlin's...

Would you like to know what America's young people are actually learning while they are away at college? It isn't pretty. Yes, there are some very highly technical fields where students are being taught some very important skills, but for the most part U.S. college students are learning very little that they will actually use out in the real world when they graduate. Some of the college courses listed below are funny, others are truly bizarre, others are just plain outrageous, but all of them are a waste of money. If we are going to continue to have a system...

Flirtmeister, 101 by: Deborah Lambert, February 19, 2009 In Germany it appears that all work and no play still makes Hans a dull boy. That’s why German IT engineering students at the U. of Potsdam are leaving nothing to chance. Over 400 of them have signed up for a two-week course on the art of flirting. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the quickie course will provide a broad overview of the topic, including “how to write flirtatious text messages and e-mails, impress people at parties, and cope with rejection.” Local bon vivant Philip von Senftleben will be teaching...

(IsraelNN.com) The Islamist Hamas terrorist organization has initiated an online course in explosives, military weapons and The sophisticated course includes highly detailed practical and theoretical lessons. tactics for would-be jihad fighters. Aimed at the population of the Palestinian Authority, the course is called "Get Ready" and is designed to prepare the population for war with Israel. First exposed outside Palestinian Authority and jihadist circles on Monday by Israel's Channel 10 TV, the sophisticated course includes highly detailed practical and theoretical lessons, as well as sample videos of jihadist attacks. All manner of weapons are described, analyzed and their proper use...

MIAMI (March 17) - A growing scandal over teachers who paid to get credit for courses they never took has cost nearly three dozen educators their jobs, and hundreds of others were being investigated. The Miami-Dade County School Board voted 5-4 on Wednesday to fire six teachers and accept resignations from 26 others. The punishments stem from a scam run by former high school teacher William McCoggle, who claimed to offer continuing-education classes through a private company. McCoggle pleaded guilty to fraud in November, admitting he did little more than sell transcripts, requiring no tests, homework or other academic work....

These Courses Are Condemned "Christian Morality in American Literature" is biased. "Feminine Perspectives in Literature" is not. Jordan Trivison holds forth in Shannon Jonker's English class, recapping several chapters of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." Then he and his fellow seniors at Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murietta, Calif., start discussing it. They take up the question of whether the monster in the novel can be blamed for his behavior, since he was abandoned shortly after his formation and no one taught him right from wrong. They also discuss "whether the monster has a soul." Jordan struggles aloud with this issue, noting...

The new dean of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University theological seminary is a former Sunni Muslim who plans to turn out a hipper generation of graduates by relating to them with lyrics from rapper 50 Cent, TV's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and the latest movies and film stars. Ergun Mehmet Caner cracks one-liners as easily as he quotes a Bible verse. Lecturing to a packed auditorium of 450 students, Mr. Caner mixed religion with jokes to keep his students on their toes in a late afternoon theology class. He asked his students which popular actors they would...