Massachusetts is known for many things nationally.
It has great professional sports teams. It is where the Pilgrims settled. It is where the Revolutionary War began. It produces many failed presidential candidates. And it is home to many colleges and universities, most famously Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Massachusetts has 106 colleges and universities. However, not every school and class necessarily provides a great return on investment.
Some schools offer frivolous classes that, frankly, they could do without.
That said, here are five of the worst classes that Massachusetts colleges and universities have to offer:
1. The Beatles Class
Suffolk University offers a four-credit first-year seminar class about The Beatles.
No, this isn’t some science class about beetles. The school offers a class about the British rock band.
This seminar will investigate the impact and legacy of the Beatles. The Fab Four deserve our scholarly attention as musical innovators and as cultural avatars of the 1960s, an era that still exerts influence today. We will examine the many ways in which the Beatles rocked the establishment and became defining figures in post-war youth culture. We will also discuss other media (the visual arts, film, fashion, style) and fields of study (mass media, marketing, recording technology, copyright law, English history) using the Beatles as our guides.
If you’re in college just because you want to obtain a credential, then taking this class is probably a good idea. However, the school is doing people a disservice by offering this class. Having immense knowledge about The Beatles isn’t a surefire way to get a job. It also has little relevance to the majors at the school.
Attending a four-credit class at Suffolk University costs $5,032, according to the school’s web site. Paying that much to learn about The Beatles is a waste of money. Libraries and the Internet have plenty of free material on The Beatles for anyone who wants it.
Suffolk University is a private college in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston that serves 6,792 students.
2. Water Polo
Of course, there is a water polo higher education class in Massachusetts, and it is at a public university.
Bridgewater State University has some obscure one-credit classes for its physical education majors, and some students with different majors take some of the physical education classes as electives.
One of those classes is Water Polo.
Here is a description of the class from the school’s web site:
PHED 254 – Water Polo
(1 credit) Includes basic movements, skills and maneuvers of the sport of water polo with emphasis on offensive and defensive fundamentals and strategies, practical drills, rules and regulations.
While some people may find learning about water polo interesting, it lacks much real-world value. Water polo is an obscure sport, so there is not some massive water polo industry that students can get into and make a lot of money.
If anyone is going to break into the water polo industry, odds are it will be ex-water polo players, not people who took a one-credit course at Bridgewater State.
And its contribution to scholarship seems close to nil.
Plus, a credit at Bridgewater State costs in-state undergraduate students $368.50; it costs out-of-state students $573.16. That seems expensive to learn something with little real-world value.
Bridgewater State University is a public college located in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. It serves 9,942 students.
3. Ping Pong
Imagine going to an expensive private college and taking a class about how to play ping pong.
If you go to Boston University, then you don’t have to imagine it.
The school that charges about $1,908 per credit has such a class.
This course will allow students to understand the basic skills and concepts of table tennis in singles and doubles. Instruction will be focused on the elements of the modern offensive style of play, combining Chinese and American models. Students will be introduced to the two basic grips then learn forehands, backhands, service and receive, followed by advanced looping. Emphasis on psychology and strategies will be incorporated into the course throughout. Students will leave the class with the competency to train and compete with the University’s club sport B team.
For reference, you can find used ping pong tables on Facebook marketplace for $150 or less. And if you own the table, you can play as much ping pong as you want.
That seems like a much better deal than paying nearly $2,000 to learn how to play ping pong. If someone wants to learn the basics of ping pong, they should check out YouTube videos about the topic.
Boston University is a private college in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston. It serves 36,729 students.
4. Transgender Poetry
Sadly, Mount Holyoke College is not offering its “Korean American Feminist Poetry” Advanced Seminar this school year, because that sounds like a great time and wise use of tuition dollars.
However, if you are looking to take a class that involves poetry, look no further.
Mount Holyoke offers a class that studies the writing of “queer and/or trans authors,” according to its web site.
Here is a description of the class:
GNDST-204QT Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: ‘Queer and Trans Writing’
Spring. Credits: 4
What do we mean when we say “queer writing” or “trans writing”? Are we talking about writing by queer and/or trans authors? Writing about queer or trans practices, identities, experience? Writing that subverts conventional forms? All of the above? In this course, we will engage these questions not theoretically but through praxis. We will read fiction, poetry, comics, creative nonfiction, and hybrid forms. Expect to encounter work that challenges you in terms of form and content. Some writers we may read include Ryka Aoki, James Baldwin, Tom Cho, Samuel R. Delany, kari edwards, Elisha Lim, Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, Eileen Myles, and David Wojnarowicz.
Learning about transgender poetry seems vital for anyone majoring in gender studies, and this class is part of the school’s gender studies program. However, gender studies is a stupid, woke major that does not benefit our society or the people who waste their time on it.
Given that Mount Holyoke’s tuition costs come out to nearly $2,000 per credit, a four-credit class at Mount Holyoke costs $7,988 in tuition alone. What a great use of money.
Mount Holyoke is a private college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It admits females, regardless of their gender identity, and males, who identify as a gender other than male. However, it does not admit so-called cisgender men. (Meaning males who identify as males.) It serves more than 2,200 students.
5. Pedophile and Bestiality Class
I still can’t believe I went to Emerson College for a full year.
Emerson College is one of the wokest colleges in America.
Just how woke is Emerson College?
It offers a class where students learn about the perspectives of pedophiles and zoophiles (people who are sexually attracted to animals).
Such people should have no place in our society if they were to ever even think about acting on those impulses.
Yet, students at Emerson College pay money to learn about them and more in a class dedicated to “sexual outcasts.”
Explores the theme of sexual outcasts (groups and communities that are stigmatized for their sexual behaviors or identities) through the lenses of contemporary journalism, memoir, and sociology/ethnography. Students read about pedophiles, ex-gays, polyamorous couples, sex workers, zoophiles, BDSM enthusiasts, sex addicts, and members of the LGBTIA community who are still sometimes overlooked or discriminated against (including bisexuals, transgender people, and queer youth). Students analyze whether these subcultures are depicted fairly and accurately, and compare genres to explore different approaches to writing about controversial sexual subjects.
As a society, we are not hard enough on pedophiles. Convicted child molesters should never be released from incarceration unless they were falsely imprisoned. It’s not just the horribleness of what they did; it’s the fact that there is no known cure for their condition, and therefore no way of reliably keeping children safe from them in the future.
This is a four-credit class. Emerson College charges $1,634 per credit, meaning it is a $6,536 class. That alone makes a strong case for student loan debt forgiveness.
Emerson College is a private college mostly located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston that serves 4,117 students.
Also, here’s the best advice you can give someone if they ask if their child, relative, friend, or acquaintance should go to Emerson College: No.
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