I went from being a grad school dropout to enjoying Harvard's free history course
Why did this college grad, who wasn't interested in history class, sign up for Harvard's "American Government: Constitutional Foundations" class?
Writer’s note: I have completed the full audited, free course as of June 6, 2025 at 9:28 p.m. I enjoyed it so much that I downloaded the videos and saved the transcription text to watch at my leisure. “American Government: Constitutional Foundations” did not disappoint. It also made me want to take more of Harvard’s free courses. I’m starting another one this weekend.
I have also enrolled in three more courses that are set to start on June 25:
Citizen Politics in America: Public Opinion, Elections, Interest Groups, and the Media
U.S. Political Institutions: Congress, Presidency, Courts, and Bureaucracy
American Government: Constitutional Foundations
ORIGINAL POST STARTS HERE
I never thought I’d be taking college courses again. My paternal grandmother took courses well into her senior years, always wanting to keep her brain sharp. But after the drama at the first university I attended for two years and my delight at graduating from an HBCU, I thought I’d tapped out forever on college. (In the middle of an expulsion threat, I still managed to graduate from undergrad in four years because I’d luckily taken courses that could be transferred over.)
But a year after I graduated, I was sorta bored. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I wanted to be like my paternal grandmother. But at my first corporate job after graduation — a switchboard receptionist for a claims management company — the mandatory Microsoft Office classes I was taking gave me the “education itch” again.
How’d I “scratch” it? I applied and was accepted into a private, Catholic school (I am neither Catholic nor had I ever been to a private school) in my hometown. I’d already conquered what I wanted to do degree wise, so I switched my major from Communications to Public Relations to Writing.
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My next boss, who was an alumna of my grad school, was impressed when she saw my ongoing studies at this Chicago university. I left the receptionist job and was hired as an Assistant Copy Editor with a publishing company. My new problem post-hire? I didn’t want to be in school anymore — again. I was getting on-the-job training. Two years into grad school, I dropped out, but I took that wealth of information that undoubtedly has assisted me throughout numerous media and publishing jobs.
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So, why did Shamontiel sign up for free online courses at Harvard?
Almost two decades later, you could’ve never convinced me that I’d take another college class or step foot on a college campus for anything other than a speaking event or to dance around during homecoming. Nothing appealed to me about Harvard University when I was in high school, college or most of my adulthood. Even when a child my maternal grandmother used to babysit grew up to be a Harvard graduate, I listened to her positive experience about being a Black woman at this university and was still neutral. (I didn’t have the grades to get in anyway.)
Recommended Read: “Yes, Malcolm X 'changed the world' ~ Honoring Malcolm X's 100th anniversary and historical legacy”
But when Claudine Gay, the first Black woman president of Harvard, was harassed nonstop and quit after six months, I was really side-eyeing this university — even after cheering Swizz Beatz on for graduating from Harvard’s business school.
As much as I disagree with some of the moves the university has made, the one thing I cannot knock them for is standing up to Donald J. Trump. While Columbia University folded — and was still punished while complying with his moronic requests — I like that Harvard is not willing to kiss the ring. Sure, they’re making some decisions that I’m not super thrilled with, but they’re also not letting a bully drag them all over the schoolyard.
And that’s what led me to checking out their free online courses — first, to see if they were really free and then to see what they’d offer. Courses like “Negotiating Salary” sound good, but former professional hockey player Derek Sanderson is not going to go through the same obstacles that a Black job seeker or a woman job seeker would go through. (Plus, I really like the salary discussion I had with a client for a dogsitting job. I have used her advice consistently over the past five years for every single freelance contract I’ve agreed to and gotten double the salary I would’ve taken 10 years ago. No dogs were involved though — minus that one marketing job for a pet dating app.)
Recommended Read: “A dog-sitting job taught me a valuable lesson about the gig economy ~ Why women should charge their salary ‘worth’”
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I still may circle back to that negotiating course at some point. In the meantime, what free (audit) course am I taking now? “American Government: Constitutional Foundations.” Never in a zillion years did I think I would revisit Social Studies courses, especially when I was bored to tears of learning about “American” history in high school. The only time I’d truly pay attention is in elementary school when Black history came up. I would happily visit the DuSable Museum, read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and watch “Roots.” New poem from Gwendolyn Brooks or Langston Hughes? Let's hear it!
High school required reading? Meh. I just wanted to rush through until the end.
TRANSCRIBED VIDEO SNIPPET OF THE HARVARD LECTURE
Now, high ideals don't come with a guarantee that people will live up to them. The clearest proof of that in the American case is slavery. For 250 years, Black Americans could be bought and sold, subject to the dictates of their masters. And even when freed by the Civil War, Black Americans continued to suffer second—class status, denied access in the South to whites-only schools, hospitals, restaurants, and hotels. Unequal treatment was also the fate of Native Americans and of women. Asians, too.
Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government & The Press
-Harvard University “American Government: Constitutional Foundations”
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Why take Harvard’s “American Government: Constitutional Foundations” free audit course?
In addition to being grown, living life and not looking at history through a minor’s eyes, there are parts of history that are more enjoyable to hear about in 2025. When I was in elementary school, I wasn’t seeing photographs of former President Barack H. Obama in history lesson plans. My instructors had no idea that they would one day be able to quote the first Black president. I wouldn’t be able to giggle at the instructor counting off countries and stating “you name it” at the end. (I rapped Shirley Caesar’s “beans, greens, potatoes, tomatoes” speech in my head.)
While Harvard’s political course is not intended to be comedic nor an Obama fan club course, lived experience makes me approach this course and history lessons I learned decades ago and now actually want to know — instead of worrying about passing a scantron test.
Additionally, while my elementary school teachers talked about gerrymandering and Watergate, they had to figure out the simplest way to describe it. Japanese detention camps didn’t come up at all nor were any of us asked to see if we could pass the voting literacy test. (Even after earning a bachelor’s degree, two years of grad school and 20 years in the publishing industry, I’m not completely confident that I’d get a perfect score on the voting literacy test featured in the “Representative Government” chapter. I want to edit two of those questions for clarity, but I suspect the directions are purposely vague.)
In high school, none of this was a topic of discussion in “American” history. Christoper Columbus came up a lot though, even at a school that had at least one-third Hispanic and one-third African-American students. The NSA eavesdropping, a topic that would’ve caught my attention, wasn’t an issue in Congress yet. And on and on and on. I’m looking forward to refreshing my memory bank about all the basics I was forced to learn and now want to review by choice.
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Even foggy memories of King George III versus America are more intriguing to me now, specifically under a 2024-2028 presidency that would love nothing more than to starve and imprison the poor (and middle class), create a dictatorship, and do hypocritical things like lecturing about violence and drugs while dropping charges from drug dealers and notoriously violent men.
(In my opinion, this is solely to win over Black men if he’s delusional enough to seek a third presidential term — and stops walking into walls. However, everybody is not Snoop, Kanye, Math Hoffa nor Nelly. The 2024 election results still confirm that Black male voters know who the Central Park 5 is, and these voters have not forgotten who Trump really is. Black men don’t loathe him nearly as much as Black women, but it’s close enough for me to be mildly relieved. And while I’m at it, I don’t think X is the person who gave Elon Musk the black eye, solely because Trump acted like he had no idea his “advisor” had a shiner. That’s not something you can overlook when someone is in front of you.)
I’m going to take Harvard’s online history course at my own pace, so I don’t lose interest in it the way I did in grad school. (This is one of the perks of working from home and remote classes.) And because Harvard is what it is, I expect it to not disappoint. So far, it reminds me more of the history classes I took in elementary school and is nothing like the sugarcoated version I was taught in high school and my first college. I am pleasantly surprised.
While I take this course, I’ll be watching Trump rant and rave about this university in real time too — double the bonus! I’m 100% hoping Harvard continues to fight back and wins in the end.
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “BlackTechLogy,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “One Black Woman’s Vote” and “Window Shopping” too. Thanks for reading!