Bellevue College offers various interdisciplinary courses each quarter. These courses allow students to take what is usually a total of 10 or 11 credits that count towards various subjects. Students are given the opportunity to obtain, say, an English credit and Biology credit by taking a single course, such as the popular “Bite Me” course which has been offered many times. Some interdisciplinary courses may be a one-time deal, so catching up on what each quarter has to offer may benefit students in the long run.
This upcoming winter quarter, BC is offering an interdisciplinary course called “How to Survive the Coming Zombie Apocalypse” that will assist students in sustaining their lives through many upcoming world problems. This course is a continuation of a similar interdisciplinary course called “Bite Me,” taught by Michael Hanson and Michael Meyers, which often focuses on sustainability and consumerism. The “How to Survive the Coming Zombie Apocalypse” class is taught by Elizabeth Harazim and William Payne, who are going to discuss how students can improve their lives in the future. “It’s kind of a sustainability interdisciplinary course. It’s sort of about a we are going to adapt to looming crisis in the next century, in your lifetime,” said William Payne, a philosopher and instructor for the class.
The “Bite Me” course was only focused on nutrition and food, while this “How to Survive the Coming Zombie Apocalypse” course is more broadly focused. Things that will be discussed in class would be social justice, climate change, water supply and food population. One of the main goals of the class is to create a platform from which each student can enhance their ability to adapt and flourish their own lives while helping others. The course “get[s] students thinking about how to engineer a flourishing life for themselves, and negotiate the biggest phase they are facing,” said William Payne.
The task of both William Payne and Elizabeth Harazim will be divided. Payne will be focusing the ethics section, talking about the “Good Life,” which basically means what it takes to live a good and flourishing life. Living a good life is very hard, especially in the environment we are living in at the moment, having face climate changes, global warming and other worse scenarios.
Another class offered winter 2014 is “Alone Together: Identity and Writing in the Age of Social Media.” Taught by Katherine Trelstad and Kimberly Pollock, this course discusses the impact of social networking and media on the identity of individual peoples, as well as their cultural and societal identities. The course focuses on whether “life on screen—and by extension, popular culture—shapes society, or if society defines popular culture by studying literature, television, music, film and more,” as described on the BC website’s class listings. The “Alone Together” class gives students the option to get one of two sociology credits and one of many English credits or a Cultural and Ethnic Studies credit.