Elon University students are taking additional courses outside the classroom during Winter Term. These courses offer no credit and provide no homework. Winter Term “Burst the Bubble” classes allow students to take non-academic courses that pique their interest.
The topics for classes this year range from beatboxing to the Middle East to whiskey. In 2007, the first year of Burst the Bubble classes, students conducted a total of 12 Burst the Bubble classes. This year, there are 26 classes.
Seniors Laura Orr and Dawson Nicholson are presenting about southern foods in their Burst the Bubble class “Biscuits, Grits, and Pecan Pie: Food Made in the South”. They were both raised in the South Orr is from North Carolina and Nicholson is from Tennessee.
During this Winter Term, these two students are teaching eight fellow students how to make traditional southern dishes. Students in this class have made buttermilk biscuits, sweet potatoes, baked mac and cheese and green bean casserole up to this point in the class.
“I just love cooking and I think at Elon there’s not a lot of Southern food,” Orr said. “There are plenty of dishes that students can easily make, but they just don’t know how to fix them.”
This hands-on class not only teaches students how to cook the food — it also provides the supplies and equipment for them in the Moseley Kitchen.
Other classes discuss more serious subjects.
Senior Emma Mankin and junior Kyle Porro, representatives from Students Promoting Awareness, Responsibility, Knowledge and Success (SPARKS), are holding a class on sexual assault and rape on college campuses. Mankin and Porro said they want to motivate students to start a conversation with friends about these topics.
Their larger goal is to remove the negative connotation some people have about taking an active role in sexual activity by being more upfront about communicating expectations and preferences.
A similar class about safe sex was also held last year by Elaina Vermeulen '15 and Matthew Johnston, which attracted more students than this year's class.
“There was more hype around this subject last year and consent and rape were more of hot-button topics,” Porro said.
Lack of participation in classes this year is common, according to junior Aislinn Gherman who is teaching the Burst the Bubble class, “Psychopathology in Modern Society: Business Leadership and the push for manipulative behavior."
Gherman’s class originally had 12 participants sign up before Winter Term began, but only two attended her first class.
Gherman’s class takes a psychological and sociological perspective on business leadership, analyzing the growing habit of businesses operating under selfish motives. Recent cases from companies like Volkswagen, Enron and Johnson & Johnson are presented and discussed in the class to take a look at why unethical business management is growing in popularity.
“This class was more about the intersection of ethics and the businesses that show up all over the news,” Gherman said.
She explained her method of teaching was through a combination of presenting cases about modern businesses through podcasts like “This American Life”, videos like TED Talks and news articles.
Like Gherman, any student has the ability to start a Burst the Bubble class through applying online in November after receiving an email from burstthebubble@elon.edu.