It's worth taking a look at the instructor, Kenneth Goldsmith's, bio[0]. He's one of the founders of UBUweb and MoMA's first poet laureate. He also had a recent interview with Stephen Colbert where they talk about his new book which consists of live television and radio transcripts of the moment announcers found out about major events in US history (JFK's assassination, 9/11, etc.) as a study on the language of improvisation.[1]
I love this. I unsuccessfully tried to get my University to let me create my own major in Pop Culture back in 2005. A decade later, it's an actual option for comms students now.
Also, I bet doing well in this class will be much harder than it appears.
Worth noting from the course listing that this is an English/Creative Writing class, not a Computer Science class. So I imagine you would be writing papers about wasting time on the internet rather than actually doing so.
As part of its so-called core curriculum, Penn typically requires students in all schools to take a writing class. They kinda go out of their way to offer a variety of interesting options because writing is not everyone's thing. My class was "Man in Nature" and featured Thorough, Emerson, etc. It focused a lot on being in nature, which is also atypical for an English class, just not the kind of atypical that gets reported.
Yeah, it's basically a writing workshop class with class hours as enforced "let your mind wander and use that for inspiration" time. (Presumably writing submissions and feedback happen online or at the beginning or end of class sessions.)
Kenny Goldsmith [0], the guy who teaches this class, has done a lot of thinking about internet-based poetics... highly recommend his book "Uncreative Writing"[1] for those interested
Love the idea, and how it exposes the absurd rip-off of american higher education. $60K a year to waste time on the internet? That's what you do in most classes anyway. I seriously love this guy. He and UPenn are just flagrantly robbing all these rich, Ivy League kids' parents. Now I really don't feel bad about Googling the course material the 10 minutes before the MIT classes I TA'd.
I go to UPenn. I grew up with a single parent making less than 15k a year, but that is less important then the fact that I find classes at Upenn incredibly rewarding in both education and improving my industry skills.
Its an undergrad class ENG 111 (15 seats), so I imagine those who take it costs them around 3600$, so its hardly fair to say they are spending 60k to waste time on the internet. Who knows, maybe people who take it find it rewarding / helpful.
Of course, focusing on details. It is more about spending money on something that you can easily do for free. This was not to pick on UPenn. Rather it was more to point out the irony of this professor's class when thinking about the value of American college education.
I suppose we'll have some post-course experience shared on the internet, but I fail to see the point of the course only from the news article. Maybe I lack creativity?
Although I agree that "[...] the Internet is actually making us smarter.", I wonder what will students write after a semester of 3-hour weekly lectures surfing the web.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Goldsmith
[1] http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/5tqazj/kenneth-goldsmi...