The purpose for going to college is to learn, to take courses in new subjects which stimulate you and educate you. Nevertheless, the major goal is to gain knowledge and information you can use to get a good-paying job after you graduate. Of course, I had those objectives, too, but the courses I remember six decades later are the ones in which I had fun.
I no longer recall what specific subjects I encountered or when I encountered them. I did test-out of standard English for my freshman-year. My high school public speaking classes gave me a foundation for composition and grammar. Four years of Latin in high school were beneficial for an understanding of nouns and verbs; of subjects, objects, and indirect objects; and of compound sentences. As a result, I was able to take courses on short stories and theater that were more enjoyable than freshman English might have been. For many years, my favorite past-time was reading short stories and plays instead of long novels. American and European history courses were highly interesting. I wish I had taken more lectures in ancient history and medieval studies.
Among my favorite courses was a senior-year elective in “comparative linguistics” in which I saw the connections among Sanskrit, Greek and Latin as they evolved into the Romance and Teutonic languages. I can still vaguely recall “Grimm’s Law.” My only formal, foreign language was German, taught by Professor Meinke, one of the few KSU instructors whose name my memory holds from the late 1950’s. As a result of comparative linguistics, Latin and German – and much to the chagrin of the foreign language department at Cornell – I was able later to “audit” French and pass the reading exam for my second language requirement in graduate school. Meinke’s special course in scientific-German was of great help in passing my first-foreign-language exam.
As a chemistry major, I had the requisite courses in general, qualitative, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. Biochemistry had to wait until I majored in it for my doctoral degree. Along the way I also had fundamental courses in physics and in mathematics. I managed to get A’s or B’s in all of them; the only C-grade I received was for a special offering in “chromatography” – a new chemistry technique taught in my senior year when I was dating my future wife and spending more time with her than I did in a chemistry laboratory.
Among the many biology courses I took, my favorite was endocrinology. Later, during my doctoral years, I used this subject for a “minor” – with my “major” in biochemistry. In order to fit everything in that I needed for my undergraduate science degree, I usually carried between eighteen and twenty hours each quarter. I spent much of my four years at Kent State in the lecture rooms and laboratories of McGilvrey Hall. However, my main deficits are in the Earth Sciences, which were also located within the confines of McGilvrey. (I also missed out on anything related to Economics.)
In addition to the B.S. degree, I wanted to earn a B.S. in Ed. and devoted hours to educational classes, with many in developmental and behavioral psychology. I remember, with gratitude, Dr. Gerald Read who taught me both educational philosophy and how to think. During his first several classes, he would discuss a major approach to education and convince me that this approach was, indeed, the way I wanted to teach. He then followed with lectures on how what he had previously said made no sense. Next, he would offer views on another educational approach, which was far superior, until he tore that one apart during the following classes. After multiple build-ups and teardowns, I recognized the need to develop my own educational philosophy incorporating parts of all of what he had taught.
Now, THAT is what education is all about!