Stanford Interactive: What classes should I take?
Well, I’m finally caught up with all my weblog entries. And it only took me one term! I hope you’re happy.
Here’s your chance to reward me with your unsolicited advice: Stanford’s next term begins soon and I need to pick out some classes. Have a pet subject? Think there’s something I should know? Got suggestions? Email them to me or post them in the comments.
For reference, the course catalog is here [3M PDF]; classes have to be marked “Spr” for me to take them this term, but I guess you could suggest classes for other terms too.
posted March 28, 2005 02:10 PM (Education) (8 comments) #
microeconomics. In Stanford they call it “Principles of Economics”, the name of which makes me suspect it will include some macro, which at that level is a waste of time. If the principles course include a lot of macro then you might try to skip it and take a price theory course.
intro courses tend to be a bit slow, since they want to get the basic concepts through to the thick kids. Despite this, a lot of people find their first micro course to be particularly useful.
posted by Nik at March 26, 2005 08:07 PM #
You seem to like Zimbardo’s class, so I’d take Sapolsky’s Human Behavioral Biology. It’s an excellent class, very exciting, no bio background needed. Except it’s not offered spring quarter—just every other winter quarter. Also Development Economics is interesting. And whatever Dr. Moretti is teaching should be great.
posted by Annie at March 27, 2005 10:42 AM #
I’d love to see you pick apart and overanalyze a foreign language. :)
posted by janna at March 27, 2005 05:23 PM #
Second on the Sapolsky class. If you can’t take it at least read a couple of his books.
posted by at March 27, 2005 11:49 PM #
yikes, I knew the clocks had gone forward, but this much?
posted by at March 28, 2005 01:46 AM #
So my father-in-law is teaching a course:
SCIENFRENGEN 190Q. Parisian Cultures of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries—Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to sophomores. Political, social, and cultural events in Paris from the Napoleonic era and the Romantic revolution to the 30s. The arts and letters of bourgeois, popular, and avant garde cultures. Illustrated with slides. GER:3a 4 units, Spr (Bertrand)
He’s a wealth of knowledge and Paris is sooo much more fun after you’ve taken this class.
Oh, and he uses iPhoto and Keynote to do his slide shows now (not bad for a professor emeritus). Isn’t that reason enough to take it?
May your term go well….
Pedraum
posted by Pedraum at March 28, 2005 11:54 PM #
Petroleum engineering? (I had to!)
An outsider’s opinion; I don’t know any of these classes. This may make this useless to you, I know, as it will be vague.
If you want to “change the world”, the life sciences are certainly ripe for opportunities to do that. There’s still tons of stuff to discover. I’m guessing that it’s not where your current interests lie, though.
There’s always computer science, but I’m thinking you’re looking for something different. Oh, wait:
CS 193I. Internet Technologies—Programmer-oriented survey of the
authoring, distributing, and browsing technologies. The role, use, and
implementation of current Internet tools. Topics: TCP/IP; namespace,
connections, and protocols. Client/server structures. Web/HTTP/HTML
techniques for text, images, links, and forms. Server side programming,
CGI scripts. Security and privacy issues. Programming projects on
client- and server-side may be in Perl or Java.
Right up your alley!
More seriously, there are classes in that department that may interest you. For example you could try Introduction to Computer Vision and contrast with Hawkins’ work.
Some of the econ stuff looks interesting, as finance seems to be rather undertaught nowadays.
A huge recommendation: DRAMA 20. Introduction to Acting. I dare you.
PSYCH 12Q. Emotion except it looks too, well, fluffy.
I liked a class like PSYCH 30. Introduction to Perception a lot, but it’s not too useful for you, I think (wasn’t for me, either, but it was interesting).
An intro to cognitive psychology, neuroscience, or science would be fun, but that’s personal bias (isn’t it all, though?)
ENGR 103. Public Speaking People skills are much harder and more important than technical ones.
HUMBIO 123. Sexuality in Adolescence (shrug.)
Either of the two classes on emotion (Psych 158, 161)
SOC 123. Sex and Love in Modern Society is probably popular.
Symbolic systems stuff, except for the fact it looks a bit too formalized.
posted by Rich at March 29, 2005 01:27 AM #
STS 101 Science, Technology and Contemporary Society sounds good, although I have no idea if you can attend or not. Universities in Spain are much less complicated! (much less fun, too).
posted by Su at March 29, 2005 04:59 PM #
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