#required classes

☕️ Prepare yourself and get ready for your required classes - oh don’t we all love them without exception?❤️📚📝🖋☕️☕️☕️

Nope! Unlike most colleges, Smith doesn't require students to take any gen eds! Even First Year Seminars aren't technically required, it's the writing intensive aspect of the courses offered that really matters, as all incoming first years are required to take at least one course classified as writing intensive.

You will likely have specific required courses for your major, once you choose it, but otherwise, you're free to take what you want!

Smith’s open curriculum is really rare, and it's definitely one of the things that drew me to the school. I mean, where else would I never have to take another math class? ;)

Note: I’ve gone to American public schools my whole life in two different states, so if there’s anyone else out there with better experiences from school, I hope we can eventually follow suit and feel free to add your own suggestions based on your own experiences

Basic Car Care- where students get hands on experience on how to change a tire, check the oil, jump start a car, learn what to do when a car gets stuck in mud or snow, etc.

How to Cook a Meal on a Low Budget- As a broke-ass college student moving out of my mom’s house, this would’ve made my life so much easier during those first few weeks.

Sex Ed- where it’s not only Suddenly-Christian Mom screaming abstinence at you, but also how to be safe.

Basic Accounting- where students are taught about taxes, how to pay them/file for them, how to balance finances, etc.

Self Defense- I’m not talking full on ninja training, but what to do when the victim of a mugging. It could be as simple as stunning an attacker long enough to run and get help if the situation ever called for it.

Job Interview Practice- Definitely important for high school seniors going into either college or straight into the work force. Do’s and don’t’s according to real-life possible employers.

Uncensored History Classes- Our country was involved in some pretty terrible world-rattling events, both past and present, and classes shouldn’t try to paint it into a prettier picture. Slavery and segregation was a thing, America did some pretty horrific things to win wars, pilgrims and Native Americans did not hold hands around a campfire and sing Kumbaya on Thanksgiving, police brutality is still a thing that happens today, and we do not live in a perfectly functioning place, so let’s learn what’s wrong in our world today so we can fix it as we go into the world.

Foreign Languages and Etiquette- Foreign languages aren’t required for students until high school, and even then, you only need two years to graduate (or at least, that was my experience). We should follow other countries’ leads and start learning languages in school at a much younger age, so fluency can be reached by high school/college age. Not only that, but the etiquette for different cultures should be taught in school, in the case of meeting someone from a different country. Let’s stop this “ignorant American” stereotype.

want to be taking:                                                    What I'm actually taking:

A women's studies class                          World Literature class (pretty cool)

American politics and government                                   Geometry (meh)

A sign language course                                       English comp 1 (very meh)

A world religions course                                                  Biology (just no)

A world history class                                       American History (pretty cool)

an American history class                                      Spanish 2 (No me gusto)

maybe a photography class                     Public Speaking (makes me vomit)

and band (clarinet for life)                      and band (clarinet or nothing at all)