When people think of Johns Hopkins programs, the BioMedical Engineering or International Relations programs come to mind. Departments that might not be immediately thought of by outsiders, such as Philosophy or Writing Seminars, still have large amounts of followers within the student body.
However the smaller departments, such as the Center for Africana Studies, Near Eastern Studies Department or the Center for Leadership Education are often overlooked. They all vaguely ring a bell in the back of everyone's mind, but they're not exactly the celebrities of Johns Hopkins. For those who really aren't familiar with the smaller, overlooked departments of Hopkins, here's a quick overview of them.
The Center for African studies, as the name might imply, focuses on Africana studies globally and in Africa. The course offerings sound like the kind of classes that are more fun than actually work, such as the Bebop, Modernism and Change class.
This class focuses on Bebop music and implications on American society. For those who enjoy museums, the department is also offering a course on Africa and the Museum, which is being offered in conjunction with the newly launched Program in Museums and Society.
The Museums and Society program offers several classes, cross-listed with other departments, focusing on mostly art within museums, but also the occasional bizarre class. One such class is the Introduction to Material Culture: the Pet in Early America, which, for those pet lovers out there, uses resources from over two hundred years ago and ends with an exhibit in January.
Although the Museum and Society program only offers a minor, it does provide students with classes that are sure to change students' perspectives whenever they enter museums.
For those students interested in the ancient Greeks or Romans, the Classics Department might have the perfect courses. They offer language courses in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, as well as classes focusing on daily life as it existed over two thousand years ago.
Some of these course offerings are Food and Dining in the Ancient World, Introduction to Roman Law, and for those into mythology, there is the Mythology of Greek Gods: Apollo and Hermes. The Classics department tends to rotate its courses, so make sure to look in the following semesters for different course listings.
As far as overlooked departments, the Engineering school has its own share of under represented programs. There is the Center for Leadership Education, which offers two programs in both Entrepreneurship & Management and Professional Communication.
Need help with those resumes or presentations? The Professional Communication program offers classes that work on all types of professional documents in Business Communication. Oral Presentations is a class devoted to, surprise surprise, oral presentations. The Entrepreneurship program offers introductory Business classes for those interested in business.
Although these departments and programs are some of the more ignored ones at Hopkins, there are many other hidden departments that offer those zany and fun classes. Near Eastern Studies offers near eastern based class in art and archeology, as well as classes on how to read hieroglyphics.
Although they offer many language courses such as Kiswahili, the Language Lab also offers classes such as Chinese Calligraphy or The Russian Fairy Tale. For those into watching movies, it's possible to do just that in the Film and Media Studies with classes focused on different types of film such as Film Genres or The Westerns of Ford, Leone and Peckinpah.
College is a time for exploration in all areas, including classes. Try some classes that are outside the normal realm. It may be pleasantly surprising.
For more information visit the registrar's course listings ashttp://www.jhu.edu/registrar/schedule.html.
