“Is it a layup?” It’s the question that ripples across campus each term, whispered over glowing screens, across dining tables and between crowded hallways, especially during course selection. While many choose classes strategically, looking for convenience or an “easy A,” some students are led into courses that reshape how they think, learn and engage with the world around them.
Issa Allison ’29, who intends on majoring in government with a minor in international studies, remembers first encountering SPEE 020: “Introduction to Public Speaking” in his fall term during Speech department professor Josh Compton’s presentation at the Speech department’s open house.
“He’s over here pitching his class and explaining how to learn how to be a better public speaker,” Allison said. “That just really drew me in, because of the charisma that the professor had to be able to engage with all these students.”
Although Allison already had experience through speech competitions and Model UN, the course quickly challenged his habits of preparing for a speech.
“In the past, I would literally just make speeches the night before,” he said. “Now, I have a new strategy of how to do extemporaneous public speaking, with notes that are more tailored to what I actually want to say.”
The class — a 15-student seminar — required frequent speeches and peer feedback. Over time, Allison said, the process changed how he understood public speaking itself.
“Speech is not a lecture,” he explained. “It’s a conversation between the speaker and audience. If you can’t maintain a conversation, you’re not making a public speech, because then you’re just talking at people rather than talking with people.”
Meanwhile, Aaron Velez ’29, a biology and economics double major, encountered a similar shift in perspective while taking ASCL 64.04: “Christianity in Korea” with history professor Soyoung Suh.
“I just found the ideas really interesting,” Velez said. “I liked a lot of the frameworks for examining [how] Christianity came to Korea through other countries … that it’s more of a bilateral transfer, looking at it less from the perspective of a top-down, colonial model.”
Despite being the only freshman in the course, Velez described the discussion sessions as both enjoyable and challenging.
“It was definitely really interesting to discuss and keep up with other people who have more background in it as religion or history majors,” he explained. “People take away different things, so it’s definitely a really good way of making a complete picture.”
Nellie Mwanyalo ’27, a student majoring in computer science modified with digital arts, encountered discussion in a more experimental form in MUS 24.01: “Black Sound Studies,” a seminar course exploring how Black artists construct meaning through sound. After previously taking a class with Music department professor Allie Martin, she decided to enroll in Black Sound Studies after being drawn to her teaching style.
Each week, students listened to an album and discussed how sound and lyrics communicated identity and experience.
“We talked about what we learned and what were similar elements you noticed when it comes to soundscape,” she said. “We also looked at how black artists use music to express themselves.”
For her final project, Mwanyalo analyzed “Heaux Tales,” a song by Jazmine Sullivan, an experience that prompted her to reconsider her language paradigms.
“It changed my way of thinking and how I use language,” she said. “She was trying to reclaim [derogatory] words in the English language, to use them to empower women and not bring them down, as a form of resistance.”
Meanwhile, creative writing courses introduced a different kind of reflection for Sofia Uribe ’29, a student intending to major in environmental studies. After arriving on campus with a long-standing interest in writing, she enrolled in CRWT 011: “Introduction to Creative Nonfiction” in her freshman fall term.
Taught by creative writing professor William Craig, students shared drafts and responded to one another’s work in an environment she described as both flexible and deeply personal.
“It’s really vulnerable, putting your work out there for others to workshop,” she said. “So, there’s this sort of care that goes into responding to it and to connecting it to it.”
Unlike many traditional courses, deadlines were intentionally loose, reinforcing the idea that writing develops over time.
“We didn’t have due dates,” Uribe explained. “Writing is never finished; it’s always an iterative process, and so he was just like, ‘put in your rough draft, it doesn’t have to be perfect, just completed. Give me some of your initial thoughts.’”
Across disciplines, students described how these courses changed not just what they learned, but how they approached learning itself. For Velez, interdisciplinary coursework introduced new conceptual frameworks beyond his majors.
“I want to try courses outside of [my major], and see what new frameworks I can acquire, ” Velez said. “Not just pure knowledge, but frameworks of thinking and approaching learning in a pedagogical sense.”
For Mwanyalo, those frameworks also prompted personal reflection. As an international student from Kenya, she detailed how courses exploring identity and history encouraged her to better reflect upon her life in both the United States and her home country.
“I’m in America, so I need to learn about the history and why things are the way they are today,” she remarked. “But, when you learn about another culture’s history, it makes you think about your own home country as well.”
The small, discussion-based environments also created unexpected communities. Allison noted that his freshman-only public speaking course helped students connect early in their college experience.
“We had a special, direct connection with our peers, knowing that they’re all going through the same process that we are in fall term,” he said. “We all found community [by] working with one another.”
Uribe described a similar dynamic in writing workshops, where responding thoughtfully to peers became part of the learning process.
“I learned a lot about empathy,” she said. “Of really hearing what someone has to say through their work, processing it and being really intentional about others’ thoughts.”
Even when distributive courses offer valuable learning experiences, Allison observed that many students still treat them as requirements to complete quickly.
“Unfortunately, I think students look for layups that fulfill a distributive, rather than thinking about classes that genuinely interest them,” he said.
Ironically, Allision’s public speaking course did fulfill a distributive requirement — but that was never his motivation for enrolling.
Uribe echoed that sentiment, describing creative courses as an opportunity to slow down and reflect during college.
“It’s like the Dead Poet’s Society quote: ‘Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for,’” she said. “We’re in college here to enjoy it. We should give ourselves a break and really let ourselves take this time to actually discover who we are, and writing and art is such a personal way to really do so.”
