Worthless college courses part 2: American Folklore

Whatever major you decide to choose in college, realize that a lot of your time and money will be spent on completely worthless classes. And by a lot of time, I mean more than 50%. Remember to check out Academic Composition if you ever need Alex's services. As I've stated before, I went to college to study accounting and I've taken filler classes such as American Folklore to meet the 120 credit hour requirement.

The class was taught by some guy that looks like he might have attended Woodstock and listened to Jim Morrison. Just like the class Art and Environment, I found this class interesting but a complete waste of time. If I didn't need to take the class, I would have rather been studying for another class, working out, or sleeping. I guess that describes almost any liberal arts or humanities class.

So, how did I get there? Well, my major required me to take an elective class that was level 3000 or above outside of the business college. American Folklore just seemed kind of painless and it fit my schedule.

So on to the class itself. It was largely a class about anecdotes about different groups of people. We studied the Amish a little bit and talked about shoe fly pie. Every now and then, the professor would bring in a record player and play records of some native songs or recordings of New York street vendors trying to sell things. I was always amazed how record players work. No wires or anything.

There were interesting anecdotes. The professor mentioned one game that he and his friends played in their youth. A bunch of kids would bunch together in a tight circle. They would take a pocket knife and expose all the knives. One kid would throw it up into the air. And the last kid to run away from the tight bunch won the game.

We learned about different superstitions in American culture. One example that comes to mind is the way for a real estate agent to sell a house. If a house has been sitting around forever and has trouble being sold, what an agent can do is take a figurine of the carpenter Joseph, dig a hole in the property, and bury the carpenter Joseph. The property will sell shortly after that.

However, the course went into the most trivial of trivial things when we read about Latrinalia. Latrinalia is the scribbling or writing on the inside of bathroom stalls.

I want to let that sink in for a little bit. For anyone that pays taxes or is about to take out student loans. Please realize that a small portion of it (no matter how small it is) is going to pay a professor to teach college students (anywhere from the age of 20 to 40 years old) about the writings or scribbling of things on the inside of bathroom stalls.