General Education

Like many colleges, back when I was at UB there was a general education requirement to take a selection of classes not in my major in addition to Foreign Language and Physical Education courses too.
Compared to the “Gen Ed” program at the College that I currently teach, it was not too demanding and I enjoyed most of the classes that I took.
Among the classes that I took were several History and Political Science courses along with a class in Geography.

I also took a class in Electronics offered by the Medical Technology Department.
I never would have thought to take this class but it was the only electronic course at UB that would allow non-majors take it.
It turned out that the professor was a local actor and liked having Theatres Majors in the class and often made jokes that only we would laugh at.
The lecture part of the class had about 75 to 100 women and only three men, all theatre majors.
The Lab part of the course was held off campus at a local Hospital and my lab partner was a woman who lived near me in the dorm.
As much as I love Theatre, I found that I really enjoyed the non-theatre subjects and being away from the Theatre and meeting new groups of students.
Of course the fact that the class was all women was very cool too.

I had to take two "Phys Ed" courses and one was called “Flag Football and Fitness and Conditioning”.
It was co-ed and lots of fun as we played football until it got too cold and spent the rest of the semester jogging and working out in the weight room.
One day in the middle of one semester we came in for class and found a note that said “Teacher Dead - Class Cancelled”.
Our original teacher was feisty, fun, had great stories and was an early recipient of knee replacement surgery.
Well we soon got a new instructor, a nice enough guy who let us play on the trampoline, but we missed the old one.

I took four semesters of French, but I must admit I do not remember too much today.
One day, while still living on the new campus, I got up early and took the bus to the main campus to be on time for my 8:00 AM class.
Of course it was cold and snowy; 14 degrees and very windy as I recall.
I got off the bus and walked across the open campus to my class and just in time to see someone leaving a note on the blackboard that the class was canceled.
Fortunately this time the teacher was not dead, but it was 8:02 AM and I was cold, hungry.