Choosing My Courses

OLLI Catalog print version came in the mail.  Electronic version arrived in my Inbox some time ago, presence acknowledged but e-booklet not opened.  There is an approaching window of time for submitting course preferences.  If submitted in that time frame, all submissions have equal chances of acceptance into those classes that are oversubscribed, so there is an incentive to complete the selection process on time.  Going about it takes some effort, but it pays to be methodical.  It also pays to have rules.  Start days are fixed.  There is a University intercession the final week of March, which I have designated for personal travel.  Fall semester Yom Tovim all fall on the same days of the week except Yom Kippur which occurs one day after the others.  Spring Yontif is usually limited to Pesach, as the semester ends before Shavuot.  This year Pesach yontif has one Monday, two Tuesdays, and one Wednesday.  That means Tuesday would not be suitable for courses that meet only the second half of the semester, and MW courses in the second half may be at a disadvantage.  There is not much I can do for full semester courses, but it would mean missing consecutive Tuesdays during the semester.

I start by making a grid, fifteen squares, one for each day of the work week, then early morning, late morning, and early afternoon starting times.  I do not like going to late afternoon courses, so stopped considering them a few semesters ago.  When I first began OLLI pre-pandemic, all courses were live.  The center was packed with seniors, filling up chairs in the lounge, chatting with strangers whose names you could read on their ID tags.  And courses were interactive, mostly lecture or discussion format, that one would expect from a college course, though some with an DVD or Great Courses format followed by discussion.  The pandemic altered that dramatically.  The center is never crowded, tables have replaced many of the cushioned chairs, as the cafeteria where people would congregate with either a purchased or brought lunch closed and never re-opened.  Classes became available on Zoom.  For a while only on Zoom but then a more eclectic mix.  Some are only offered electronically, some only in person, others give the student a choice.  There is one very big positive in that classes held in person at either the main center or the satellites a hundred miles away can now be accessed by people who live at the other end of the state.  And some of the best teachers have retired to the beach communities far away from my home.  Yet given the option, I prefer a live class.  And now nearly all have a format where people watch a video.  The professor's PowerPoint presentations and classes where individual participants are assigned a week to present have become infrequent.

With some experience, I've accumulated a list of preferred teachers and those I never want to sit through, and a few who I think the University should simply disallow but don't.  And then there is content.  There's a fair amount of woke.  Those people who think everyone who is of European or male background in the gene pool has harmed them and they need to shout that out.  And there are agendas, whether cleaning the environment, keeping undesirables from replacing us, redistributing other people's wealth.  Those soapbox courses don't get a place on my preliminary grid either.  There is more than enough good history, some science, exposure to travel and culture to saturate my preliminary maybe courses to move onto Round 2 of selection.

I then take a separate page for each day, divide into thirds, early AM, late AM, early PM.  Then going through the preliminary grid, live goes on the left, Zoom goes in the center, half semester courses go on the right.  A few musts stand out, usually live from a professor I've attended before.  I only want to make one trip, so I will not accept a day that has an early morning course and an afternoon course with a big gap in the middle of the day.  And the subject begins to matter more.  I like history and travel, but I also like to get a new skill, whether learning Excel or basic watercolor painting techniques.  Eventually I will have about five courses, usually spread over four days, submitted in time, and mostly accepted by the OLLI computer for registration.  The University offers a Drop and Add time after the classes begin their sessions, but I've never taken advantage of this.  They also offer, for a nominal fee, the option of taking a regular university course at the main campus.  As tempting as this is, I really don't want to drive there two or three days a week, pay for parking, and have homework or papers to write.  Though I probably wouldn't mind, likely even enjoy, sitting in a lecture room with kids who could be my grandkids and having them stare at me.

But ultimately I am an adult lifelong learner.  Osher offers in excess of what I need, from which I must select but a few.