Why General Education requirements TOTALLY ROCK

I was just listening to some sound files for my Music Appreciation class, when it dawned on me—those GE requirements that a lot of people complain about at other schools TOTALLY ROCK. Now, it’s no real secret to my friends that my brain is wired for the humanities with a pinch of science. Needless to say, I have next to no artistic abilities whatsoever and have pretty much stayed away from the Fine Arts here at Transy (not that I don’t appreciate them, oh no! I love love love them).

You know that scene in Napoleon Dynamite where Napoleon draws a portrait of his lady—yeah that’s about the extent of my artistic abilities, so when my advisor suggested I take Drawing for my Fine Arts GE, I got really embarrassed and suggested a compromise—music. Now, I sang for nearly all my childhood in various choirs and played trumpet for a couple of years, but it had been a solid 6 years since I had any formal musical training. While I wasn’t completely new to the subject, I came in pretty blind, not knowing what to expect.

My Professor has exposed us to so many various kinds of music and has taught us how to hear all the layers and complexities in music in ways that we musically inexperienced people can understand. One day, when listening to J.S. Bach’s “Ach Golgotha,” we had to get up and take steps to the rhythm of certain layers to create a “dance.” When we did our dance in circles, it created an image kind of like gears, which ended up being vital in understanding the piece of music. The fact that our Professor had come up with a way to illustrate this aspect of the music both visually and interactively TOTALLY ROCKS, and I’m so glad that Transy requires me to take classes outside my comfort zone to get a well-rounded education.