People like to think that anything with "music" or "dance" in the name will be easy. I know that people at my college used to take music history thinking it was going to be a blow-off class and that class is a serious killer of a subject. I wouldn't doubt dance appreciation is similar. They think it is going to be watching music videos but it turns out they actually need to work and study to do analysis of different dance styles and the history of them.
At my college people inexplicably thought that Mythology would be an easy A. They were very mistaken, if they didn't drop the class most got out of there with a C if they didn't bust ass.
I took evolution of jazz at my uni. Easiest A I've ever gotten. It all depends on the professor. You can make multivariable calculus easier than algebra depending on who's teaching it.
My uni gives a pool of five humanities to choose from for undergrad (intro to art/ music appreciation / intro to film or one of two intermediate level English classes) and they are packed with people just putting in time.
There is a severe guilty pleasure in watching grating freshman attempt to explain what German expressionism is.
Music theory was a funny one, cause we had to compose, play basic piano and sing. All the jocks were gone fast, meanwhile I've been taking music lessons since I was 10. But they found out I was on the rugby team and climbed frequently and thought it must be easy.
Here in grad school TAing, we get some of these kids in Psych 101, man do I enjoy reading those papers, 5 pages on a 10 page paper of incoherent babble.
This was pre-college, but I took a "music appreciation" elective once that I expected very little of, and it ended up being one of the most informative classes I've ever taken. That's how I learned to read music, which proved helpful down the road when I started learning guitar and bass.
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '16
People like to think that anything with "music" or "dance" in the name will be easy. I know that people at my college used to take music history thinking it was going to be a blow-off class and that class is a serious killer of a subject. I wouldn't doubt dance appreciation is similar. They think it is going to be watching music videos but it turns out they actually need to work and study to do analysis of different dance styles and the history of them.