Originally published May 2015
Freshman year is finally finished! Not to be corny, but it feels like it went by so fast. I absolutely loved my first year at Northeastern, and am very happy I chose it as my college. Not only was I able to meet fantastic people and have so many great opportunities available, but the classes themselves were pretty engrossing too. So without further ado, here are some of the most interesting classes I took at Northeastern:
International Business and Global Social Responsibility
Classes that depend heavily on group projects are rough. More often than not you are stuck with a team that doesn’t click, doesn’t want to do work, or just doesn’t care. So when I entered this class and heard that the majority of our final grade depending on working in a group, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this class. I am so glad I was wrong. For starters, my group was absolutely amazing. We were all on the same page and our ideas were just able to flow. We managed to make our project completely original, bordering crazy insane at times. But from matching team shirts to two presentations in one, we managed to pull off one of the most fun projects I’ve ever participated in. As far as the class in general, it made me at times wish that I had chosen international business instead of business administration. Regardless, learning about the different country groupings in the world, as well as the international opportunities available in companies, has definitely made me more interested in pursuing international work in the future!
Computer Science and Its Applications
Going into this class I thought I knew Excel and Access. I had taken a class in high school that went through the basics of Office, so I assumed that this class would be a breeze. It was not. I never realized how much you can do on Excel, and how knowing some basic formulas isn’t even scratching the surface. Pivot Tables, VLOOKUPs, knowing these is how you truly maximize Excel. And as far as Access goes, it is essentially answering questions for you as long as you know how to connect different tables and run queries. It even makes reports that you can customize for you! Walking out of that class I am glad to say that I actually know Excel and Access, and while it was not the most entertaining class at times, it will probably be one of the most useful ones I will ever take.
Principles of Macroeconomics
I took macroeconomics in high school but never had as much fun as I did taking it in college. In high school we just scratched the surface, learning the basics of supply and demand curves. It wasn’t boring, but it wasn’t thought-provoking. College made it more interesting. While I enjoy the subject microeconomics more, I had more fun in macro thanks to my professor. He was absolutely hilarious, he would be talking about something less interesting topic wise, and then relate it to something fun. He would also have some entertaining one-liners, to the point that my roommate and I would write down our favorites just so we could amuse our friends later.
Ancient Greece
I absolutely love history, to the point that I’m pursuing a history minor. I was thankfully able to start on this fall semester by taking Ancient Greece. I loved the class in one part because I was interested in it, but also because of how it was run. Instead of just being lectured at, we would discuss often. On top of discussions, we would also learn using a multitude of sources. Earlier in the year we were reading parts of The Iliad and The Odyssey, later on we were all instructed to see the school’s performance of Antigone, and when we were learning about racial tensions during the Peloponnesian War we watched some clips of 300 so we could see how those conflicts were still being represented today. Overall it was a nice break, because while the class did require lots of reading and studying for tests, the material was presented and taught in a way completely different than in the majority of my business classes, which I found very enticing.
Financial Accounting and Reporting
Accounting started off low-key, and ended low-key, but halfway through was one of the most stressful classes I was taking. In the middle of the semester my professor decided to take the rest of the semester off to spend time with his family, leaving the class in a lurch. He was very relaxed when it came to teaching, and we were learning more concepts and less journal entries, problems, credits/debits, etc. Then my replacement professor came in, and she was the complete opposite, focusing more on the application and doing more problems. While the second half of the semester had more work involved, I’m thankful I was able to experience both, especially since I found out thanks to my second professor (whom I adore) that I actually am very interested in accounting, and am now going to concentrate in it in addition to marketing. So while it was a rough few weeks in the middle of the semester relearning some concepts while adjusting to a new professor, I could not have been happier because I was able to explore a completely new (and unexpected!) interest of mine.
Northeastern is a fantastic school, with fantastic classes. I enjoyed the majority of my classes, but these are the five that stood out of the most to me. I’m excited to be taking marketing and managerial accounting starting next week, and hope they are every bit as interesting as these were!
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