Voice!

While in high school you needed to pack all your academics in the 8-3 block of your day; in college you can learn all night long!! We aren’t talking about pulling an all-nighter on that paper you avoided until the day before it was due.  No, we are referencing Wesleyan’s GREAT variety of night time seminars.  These classes, generally capped at 19 students, run from 7-10pm once a week.  Differing from your standard twice-a-week or three-times-a-week class, these seminars allow you to  get really indepth in the material all at once; a class discussion can go much further when it isn’t interrupted after one hour.  These classes emphasize discussion and student interpretation of the reading material.  Professor’s act as facilitators, rather than lecturers.  Due to its size and time, these classes are intimate and personal.  In this setting it is easy to develop a relationship with both the professor and your fellow classmates.  Since these classes do run a long time, students often bring in baked goods or snacks to share with the class.

Some of our all time favorite night seminars we have taken :

Eastern European Jewish History – A history, religion, and Russian studies course, this class offered students an opportunity to read primary source material and develop a clearer understanding of what life was really like for the Jews living in Eastern Europe.  While “Fiddler on the Roof” painted a rosy picture of shtetl life, this course made it clear early on that history creates a much more complex picture than that.  Some materials were translated into English for the first time for this course, allowing students to become historiographers and determine how to interpret confusing texts.

Animal Minds: The Moral Significance of Animal Cognition – An interesting combination of philosophy majors and biology/medical students, this course examines the contemporary philosophical literature discussing animal cognition, rationality, and the ability to feel pain.  Focusing on biological studies, it allows students to draw conclusions about what these studies really mean and how we should treat animals based on them.

Sixties Politics from Port Huron to Porto Alegra -  In 1962, Tom Hayden, a student activist, wrote the Port Huron Statement, a document which described the societal and political problems of the time, and which served as the manifesto for the activist group, Students for a Democratic Society. What if students today were to write a similar document, detailing the problems of today’s generation? This class examines this idea, as students discuss what has changed since the 60’s and what has stayed the same. After much discussion, students complete a semester-long project in which they attempt to write their own, modern-day statement.

So when you come to college, remember that classes and learning don’t just happen during the day.  In fact, some of the best stuff gets taught at night!

Emily Einhorn ‘08 and Jeff Wong ‘08
Senior Interviewers