When I was applying to colleges, a large part of that decision relied on the curriculum. For a lot of my education, I had been taking classes that I felt were repetitive and almost boring, and I wanted to be conscious about choosing a school to go to that had classes that I was excited about taking and exploring. At that point, that meant more of the STEM and engineering curriculum than anything else, and I didn’t really spend as much time thinking about the other classes I would take.
Once I got to USC, I realized that the structure of our general education (GE) requirements meant that I was going to be taking a bunch of humanities and social science classes, which I was originally not super happy about. I then realized that USC structures your schedule so that you have space to take any and all requirements, and that GE classes allow you to break up the STEM classes with something else. I took a cool poetry class called Green Worlds Ecopoetry that I really enjoyed, but my favorite GE so far was called the History of California (HIST 240).
I’m from Chicago, and so the most I knew about California history going into this class last semester was the California Gold Rush. The History of California, taught by Professor Ethington, brought us on a journey through California’s past, starting with Mammoth Week, passing through Hollywood, and following social movements, I learned more about California than I had ever expected to.
Mammoth skeleton in the National History Museum.
Did you know that there were mammoths here? They traveled in huge herds that were full of so many large animals that they pressed the ground beneath their feet into densely packed “mammoth highways.” Like what!
As part of this class, we also had an assignment to check out the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (the largest natural and historical museum in the Western United States) which is conveniently located right across the street from campus! There are dinosaur fossils there. And mammoths. We checked out a really cool exhibit about the history of people in Los Angeles, and then had to write two papers about who made California, and how.
Overall, I would highly recommend this class. Professor Ethington really cared about his students, was super passionate about sharing the History of California with us, I have a newfound appreciation for mammoths, and his dog would walk around the lecture hall in class with us sometimes.
