by Keegan Malan

I took many classes during my time at PUC. I have a lot of fond memories of them and learned a lot about myself in them. Here are my five favorite classes I had the privilege of taking at PUC. 

Development of the Novel (English 311-01)

Development of the novel traces the development, obviously, of the novel in the English language. 10 books in 10 weeks of work. It’s a hard task, made a little easier by the fact that I asked the professor what books we were reading back in the summer before the quarter started, and read most of them then, so I wouldn’t be rushed. There are some great books I’d never read before that I discovered through this class, such as The Nickel Boys, and some others that were not so good. There was one other person in the class, which made it all the easier to talk with the teacher. I got some extra credit by doing a 10-minute report on Dickens’s Great Expectations, one of my favorite books of all time. I love to read and talk about the books with other readers, so this class was one of my absolute favorites. The professor had a great passion for these books, and some she was a little tongue-in-cheek about, not loving them particularly all that much. It was good not to have a professor blindly loving all the books, and inviting her students into deeper conversation where you can disagree with her. 

Shakespeare (English 474-01)

I didn’t get into Shakespeare until after I was finished with high school. I’ve always thought that the way high school teaches the Bard makes you want to hate him. Coming to him on your own, though, gets you to truly appreciate the genius and wonders of his work. By the time I took this class at PUC, I already considered him one of my favorite writers of all time, and when I was finished, I appreciated him all the more. Again, there were only three people in this class, including me. The wonderful professor taught us some of Shakespeare’s best plays, and ones that aren’t typically discussed in high school, such as King Lear and The Tempest. The lectures were fascinating and very informative. I never took notes; I just listened and absorbed everything like a sponge. The best part was the essays we had to write, which might come as a surprise, but it’s true. Professor Wilcox wanted us to interpret the text for ourselves. He even gave us the option to choose the topic of our essays. All that mattered was that it was well written and thought out. I’ve never had a professor do that before, and I loved it, and I loved this class. 

Screenwriting (Film 346-01, 347-01)

I love movies just about as much as I love books. I love sitting in a theater and enjoying the experience. And I love to write as well, so this seemed like the perfect fit for me. It fulfilled a writing requirement, and it was something different. I’d never attempted to write a screenplay before, but now I had the opportunity. It was a larger class than my typical English ones, but not by much, there were only seven people, including me, all film majors. The class was split into two quarters, one an intro, the other the actual writing. From the very beginning, I’d decided I wanted to do an adaptation of Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, and I thankfully got permission to do so from the professor. After doing all the preliminary work of plotting and reading screenplays to understand the format, the time came to write, and write I did. We were only supposed to write a film two hours long, but I admit I had trouble with that, and the finished script ended up around 2 hours and 40 minutes. But I had a lot of fun figuring out the best way to adapt a book I loved, and came to understand how hard it is to get right. When the time came for the final class, I was handed a copy of my completed script, which I still have for memory’s sake, and to dip back into sometimes to see where my mind was at the time.

Medieval Literature (English 464-01)

This class was very fascinating, and I learned a lot about a period in literature I previously knew little about. Three people in the class, including me, found the lectures fascinating, and some of the best reads. We did a few of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and others. I had a lot of fun. It’s good to read something that challenges you, and even better to have a teacher who’s truly passionate about the subjects give it his all. When you read books as old as this, and learn about the culture these writers lived in, known or unknown, you understand just how far we have come, and how great they were at reading. Think about it; they had no TV, no radio, not all that much in the way of entertainment. But what they did have were books, and they read a lot and deeply. They may even have been better readers than we are today, so inundated with so many things that we cannot focus on one thing. Fascinating. 

Survey of Literature (English 152-01)

Once more I got to read a wide variety of wonderful texts and tales and delve deep into the core of each and every one of them. I learned how to greater appreciate Faulkner in his wonderful short story “A Rose for Emily,” and I came to understand the heart of darkness that lies in every man. I even appreciated some poetry, and poetry is not my thing, but I enjoyed much of what I read in this class. And through discussion we had some truly great dialogues with each other. We learned more about how each of us thought, and the difference of our ideals, and the similarities we all held. And since there were but two of us and the teacher, we could go a bit off topic in discussing literature, culture, and life as a whole. This was an enriching experience for all of us I am sure. I will never forget it. 

If you have the opportunity to take even a single one of these classes, I would highly recommend that you do so. You will have a great time, and will learn much about both the past and the present; others, and yourself. And you will never forget them.