SUNY Cortland offers a variety of majors, minors and concentrations to its students. It goes from Adolescence Education to Business, Biology, Communications, Science, Pre-Law, Healthcare, Music, Spanish, and many others. With such a wide variety of majors, Cortland offers a ton of different classes. I asked several students from different majors what the best classes to take are.
When talking to friends around campus, I asked them what their favorite classes in Cortland were and how they are relevant for their majors. According to Claire Engel, a Sport Management major, the best class to take is Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Sport Management – also known as COIL. Engel says “In this class I work with students here at Cortland as well as students in Finland and Lithuania. The class meets on Mondays in person and Wednesday’s and Friday’s virtually. During the semester we are separated into groups working with students here in Cortland and abroad in complete case studies. Towards the end of the semester, our classmates from Finland and Lithuania will come to Cortland for several days and then we will travel to NYC for the weekend. Each year it rotates which country students travel to. Next year, students will have the opportunity to travel to Finland and the year after to Lithuania. Overall, I thoroughly enjoy this class as if gives me a unique perspective into the world of sports in other countries.”
While talking to another student, Emma Barrett – who is majoring in Speech and Hearing Sciences, she declared that her most enjoyable classes are anatomy and physiology. In addition to it, she clarifies why she chose her major in the first place and how the said classes will help her future career: “I chose to do the speech and hearing sciences, major because my mom was a speech and hearing scientist major and she’s a big inspiration to me. I’ve seen her help lots of people grow and it seems like a very rewarding field. I hope to pursue a career of a speech language pathologist. Anatomy and physiology are my favorite classes because I get to learn all of the parts of the brain and the body that help us produce speech. I like this because it’s very fascinating and I know it’s important for my future career.”
Personally, as a junior, majoring in Communication Studies – with a concentration in Journalism, most of my General Education classes are now completed. This semester, I’m taking five classes, and among all of them there are two that I like the most and I believe to be the most relevant ones for my major: Media Writing and Media Literacy. They are very similar in some aspect, but different in others. In both I’ve been learning the history of media, how much it has been changing throughout the years and its impact on our society. Media Literacy however focuses more on the “behind the scenes” of media: how things happen, how they work, while Media Writing focuses on the writing and technical pert of media: the structure and functions of features, articles, and platforms; the goal and the responsibilities journalists have with the news and the audience, as well as to how to properly portray what they want the audience to know. These are very interesting classes to those who like to learn about the media we are surrounded by and how they work – and I believe they are offered as electives as well.
Students with different majors, goals and backgrounds will take and favor different classes throughout their academic career. The important thing is to try and enjoy your classes – regardless of what they are, while learning as much as possible from your professors. The classes you take and the knowledge you retain will help transform you into a professional in the profession you aspire to be in!