Most BS, useless, waste of time undergrad classes you took Forum

[Tariffs]

"Political Theory and Cinema"

The Professor would lecture for an hour and a half about how Alien was a metaphor for political violence. I stopped going after the 2nd lecture when he told the class that he didn't believe in the concept of grades. That turned out to be bullshit though, because when I turned in a 5 page short story in lieu of the 15+ page research paper listed in the syllabus, he gave me a B+ -_-

[John Winger]

Managing your money & The Quest For Human Destiny. However, the prof for Quest was my favorite prof of all time. He is a rabbi who has taught at the university for 40 years. It was in a big lecture hall of about 250 students. If you were late he wouldn't let you into class, bitched out people for talking with absolutely hilarity. He called out my friend sitting next to me who is Mexican for talking, proceeded to ask if he was Jewish, my friend responded with a stern "No" and then prof was like, "See how he said it!" and the entire lecture hall burst into laughter. Guy would rant about his love of corvettes and irish whiskey. I really never bought into much of what the class was about because it is a religous studies class, but it was interesting yet useless. Prof made the class worth going to.

[eric922]

History of Journalism. The professor lectured for about an hour on such topics as magazines, newspapers, and William Randolph Hearst. It was rather boring, but on the bright side we got to listen to War of the Worlds and the Shadow so that was somewhat neat.

[eric922]

"Political Theory and Cinema"

The Professor would lecture for an hour and a half about how Alien was a metaphor for political violence. I stopped going after the 2nd lecture when he told the class that he didn't believe in the concept of grades. That turned out to be bullshit though, because when I turned in a 5 page short story in lieu of the 15+ page research paper listed in the syllabus, he gave me a B+ -_-

At least you got to watch good movies. It sounds like it had potential to be interesting and utterly useless.

[heythatslife]

"Political Theory and Cinema"

The Professor would lecture for an hour and a half about how Alien was a metaphor for political violence. I stopped going after the 2nd lecture when he told the class that he didn't believe in the concept of grades. That turned out to be bullshit though, because when I turned in a 5 page short story in lieu of the 15+ page research paper listed in the syllabus, he gave me a B+ -_-

Dude did you go to Cornell?

ETA: Also, you should never believe a professor when he tells you he doesn't believe in grades. If anything, they tend to be more arbitrary. That said, you do realize that he was being extremely generous for not giving you an F, right?

[Tariffs]

At least you got to watch good movies. It sounds like it had potential to be interesting and utterly useless.

Alien and The Baader Meinhof Complex were the only good movies in the syllabus. The others were all obscure, silent, black-and-white films from the 40s-60s that had difficult to follow plots and overtly racist images. I remember one scene in some Russian film where a bunch of people on a dock point to this cartoonishly villainous-looking man (complete with handlebar mustache) and the text just says "Look! He's a Jew. Get him!" Funny? Yes. Good or interesting? Not quite.

Dude did you go to Cornell?

ETA: Also, you should never believe a professor when he tells you he doesn't believe in grades. If anything, they tend to be more arbitrary. That said, you do realize that he was being extremely generous for not giving you an F, right?

Yea I'm gonna be a senior there next year. And it wasn't just me who shortchanged the assignment! I had a buddy who turned in a photo collage of like 10 "violent" images from around campus with 2 sentence explanations for each and he got an A...in fact, I can't think of a single person who actually wrote the 15 page research paper yet the mean was still an A. I guess he just didn't like my obviously bullshit project as much as he liked others...

[mojangles]

well.... i will be taking billiards next semester if that counts? just needed 1 more credit to get that maximum 20 allowed credits

[rinkrat19]

"Relaxation." Basically yoga without any effort whatsoever--just the poses you can hold without trying (and fall asleep in). Best class EVER.

As for actual "academic" classes, BIO 101 was pretty bullshit. So was the required health class.

Oh, and I took Freshman Algebra as a engineering super senior to pad my GPA. Pretty sure I'd taken more math than the TA, but attendance was required, so I just helped out the slower freshman.

[JJ123]

"Medieval Moral Dilemmas". Required to graduate with a business degree (Catholic school).

[finnandjake2]

"Relaxation" = napping = winning. Too bad that class wasn't graded!

[jingosaur]

I had to take not one, but two classes about Organizational Behavior. And I wasn't even a Psychology major.

[JJ123]

I had to take not one, but two classes about Organizational Behavior. And I wasn't even a Psychology major.

That's usually in business classes, too. I agree, though, it's complete BS.

[Brettanomyces]

The LSAT Prep grad class was probably the biggest waste of time. We studied with poor, outdated materials, two hours a week and some were mislead into believing this was enough to score well on the LSAT.

The Biggest BS class I took was a homebrewing course--the instructor and I disagreed on several key points throughout the course, and instead of encouraging debate, gave me a "C" for participation, which brought down my grade to an A- despite the fact that I missed a total of two questions on all of the quizzes and tests we ever took, combined.

[hobie2515]

A literary study of Harry potter for muggles. I shit you not.

[tofuspeedstar]

Introduction to Basketball.

[Kimikho]

I took a math class (linear analysis? it was the third class after diff eq and matrix algebra. the quarter system is weird.) where we were allowed to have a full, front-and-back, notesheet, plus an integral table, on all tests and quizzes. The hw was graded for completion and was worth 30% of the grade, plus the lowest score was dropped, the quizzes were worth 20% of the grade with the lowest score dropped, and there were two midterms and a final, so basically, the actual exams were worth only half our grade. Plus due to a hw fluke, half the class got extra credit. The TA was such an easy grader that on one of the problems, I did the first part right, but then circled the wrong part of my solution for the answer, and then used that "answer" for the rest of the problem--and the TA gave me full points*.

It was the first class where I honestly circled "no" to the "was this class intellectually stimulating" question on the course evaluation. We learned nothing. If I sound bitter--I'm not. I took my 100% in stride .

*whereas in another class, I forgot to divide by four on a problem and that dropped me down to the median.

[AnaMariana42]

Intro to Mathematical Thinking. We wrote poems about math. My friend and I collaborated on a final project where we spent 90% of our work time photoshopping pictures of Mitt Romney for the project poster. We got an A. It was great.

[KingofSplitters55]

"Linear Algebra & Differential Equations"

Utility is relative - and in my case this class was completely useless banter. Signed up just to try it out. Dropped it a day before the deadline where I could do so without a "Withdrawal" being noted on my transcript (~7 weeks into the course).

[KingofSplitters55]

Also, the title of this thread seems to imply that "useless" and "waste of time" are one and the same.

If by "useless" you mean that you learned little applicable knowledge/skills from it, and by "waste of time" you mean that one had a net loss of utility/happiness from it, then I beg to differ and would state that they are not in fact always one and the same. Many of these classes being listed I would love to have taken - those are the kind of classes that make college worth it and can be entertaining, interesting, and/or provide some bits of information that could possibly serve one well later down the road (think Steve Jobs and his random Calligraphy class that did not reveal its utility until 10 years later when he decided to focus on the fonts in computer systems instead of just functionality).

[xylocarp]

"Finite Math"
I don't know what this is at other schools, but at mine the math we "learned" literally required no skills beyond addition and subtraction. Additionally, the class schedule went something like this:

Day 1 - "Learn"
Day 2 - "Learn"
Day 3 - "Learn"
Day 4 - "Learn"
Day 5 - "Practice" Test (ungraded)
Day 6 - Review of "Practice" Test (telling us all of the answers and exactly how to come up with them)
Day 7 - Test (literally the exact same, number for number, as the practice test. Every. Single. Time.)

My 6-year-old niece could have gotten an A.

[CalAlumni]

Creative writing son

[Mal Reynolds]

All of them.

[Otunga]

Probably intro to theater. Didn't really learn much here, nobody seemed to care, and it was a throwaway elective class for most. I'm actually interested in theater/fiction writing but as a non-major, this was the only thing I could take.

I can say I liked all my philosophy classes. Philosophy of math was fn tough, but interesting nonetheless.

[lukertin]

Every single class I took in Undergrad was useful.

[J-e-L-L-o]

History of Technology

It was literally a timeline of significant events technology wise. Kind of interesting, but really worthless in the grand scheme of things.