Why Liberal Arts Rocks My Socks

Can I still say that? Rocks my socks? Anyway…

As a senior, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting back on some of my favorite memories of my time here at William & Mary and appreciating all of the amazing opportunities I’ve had here. One of those opportunities has been the huge course catalog full of fascinating, often interdisciplinary, classes that I’ve had the chance to take while here, both as electives or within my major and minor as part of the liberal arts curriculum. To give you an idea of what an awesome and unique chance this really is, I decided to dedicate this blog to a short list of some of my favorite classes here at W&M.

1. HIST 220: Williamsburg in the Colonial and Revolutionary Era

The really fantastic thing about this class was that it entirely took advantage of the university’s proximity to Colonial Williamsburg. The class only had around 15 students so we did a lot of reading and class was heavily based on discussion of these readings rather than just listening to a lecture. I love seminar classes like this because it allows for tons of interesting and unique ideas and perspectives to be brought forth. But the truly great thing about this class was that we only met in a classroom about half or less of the time. The other half of the time we would meet in Colonial Williamsburg, say, at the Governor’s Palace or courthouse, to learn about the history of our town at the places the events actually occurred. We generally had private tours on all our “field trips” and got to speak with high up officials within Colonial Williamsburg that managed each area. [We even got to go down into the crypt of the Wren Building on the day we talked about the founding of William & Mary!] Overall, it was such a great experience to utilize the history that literally surrounds us in a hands-on way to learn!

2. SOCL 362: Medical Sociology

As someone who is interested in medicine in the way that I enjoy watching Grey’s Anatomy and ER but could never handle all of the science classes required to actually go to medical school, this was a great class to learn a bit about that world. We talked a lot about how we define health in the various societies around the world and how power and income inequalities affect the practice and availability of healthcare in the US today. A lot of the topics were especially interesting because they were things that affect me directly [or will soon enough] like insurance and Obamacare or how stress affects the body and then, in turn, affects how people work and interact in society. The research and group projects revolved around emerging diseases and how many diseases are coming back because of the anti-vaccine movement which was really interesting as well!

3. BUAD 492: Managing Conflict

This was a class I took for my minor in Management and Organizational Leadership. Managing Conflict is probably the most real-world applicable class I’ve ever taken. We learned about how to go about undertaking productive conversations when the topic is touchy or difficult, how to recognize the conflict-style of others and tailor your approach based on that in order to steer the conversation in a positive, non-aggressive way. I found myself being enlightened in this class about how my conflict style has developed from my family background and experiences, and I started to notice unconscious things that I tend to do when I’m angry or upset that are far from productive and have since been able to start working on those things. While this was technically a business class, the ability to handle conflict productively is the kind of skill that will be universally beneficial, both in my future career and personal life, which is why I’m so glad I decided to take it.

4. HIST 211/GSWS 290: Gender, Military, and War

This was an interdisciplinary course that was made up of about half history majors [like me], half gender, sexuality, and women’s studies majors, and a few random majors like english, physics, and international relations as well as some international exchange students mixed in that were just interested in the subject too. This made a great combination of perspectives to be shared since this was also a seminar style class like Colonial Williamsburg with lots and I mean LOTS of discussion involved. We looked at all the wars America has been involved with from the Spanish-American War to today and what role gender has played in them from the beginning of female military service to the way the ideal image of masculinity has evolved over the years based on military service, and the role women have played as a motivational factor to men in combat. As someone who has always been interested in the very unique role the military has in our society today and the attitudes that surround military service, this was an absolutely fascinating class!

5. BUAD 457/ THEA 460 Creative Problem Solving

This is a class I’m currently taking this semester so I don’t have a full summary available of it yet, but it seems very promising! We meet in the Innovation and Design Lab in the business school and it’s taught jointly by a theater and business professor. The course is based around the idea that creativity is actively discouraged in normal education from Kindergarten up, in which students are given a multiple choice question and told that there is only one right answer and you only have one shot to get it right or you’re a failure. This class is the antithesis to that style of education and looks to encourage creative thinking, developing a mindset to look at problems from a different perspective and innovate in all of our everyday lives and decisions. Our final project down the line is to present what we think W&M should be like in 2035 using what we’ve learned and what we think could be improved about the university to come up with creative solutions to those problems and implement them in an actual plan. Cool stuff!

Bonus: KINE 130: Adventure Games

I will admit that, much to my dismay, I never had the chance to take this class. But I’ve had several friends that have taken it and let me tell you, it sounds like the bomb dot com. [Can I say that either?] Basically, it’s a one credit entirely active class where you do things like go through the high ropes course on campus [yep, we have one!], rappel off of buildings, zip line across Lake Matoaka, and much much more. This class is on pretty much every W&M student’s bucket list, and, I can imagine, would be a great stress reliever and teach you a lot of team cooperation and discipline.

So as you can see, there are so many opportunities to take interesting, unique classes in pretty much every discipline here at W&M. It’s something I really encourage all incoming students to take advantage of to the fullest extent because you’ll likely never get the chance to take some of these classes or gain some of this knowledge again!

-Audrey Savage, ’16