This might not be super to HN's tastes, but during my undergrad I took 2 literature classes that had an enormous impact on my worldview. The first was a year l

This might not be super to HN's tastes, but during my undergrad I took 2 literature classes that had an enormous impact on my worldview. The first was a year long British Literature seminar. The professor, Siobhain Bly Calkin, was a brilliant teacher and lecturer. The course was nominally about British literature, but she made the course an incredible historical walk through British history and the history of religion in Europe. Her explanations of religious debates, and the royal bloodline feuds and twists of fate, radically shifted how I viewed European history and how people lived in Europe and the British Isles before the modern age. I've found history classes in general to have an enormous impact on my worldview. The second was a year long seminar on Modernist Literature. The professor, Dana Dragumoiu, was not the best lecturer, but she was a brilliant scholar and had almost unreasonably high expectations for everyone in the class. Everyone got Cs and Ds on their first essay, which came to a shock to many, but then she methodically worked with us to improve our arguments and writing skills. It felt like learning to read all over again. She taught me, and my fellow classmates, to exceed the minimum and to excel through hard work, she believed in us in a way that is very rare in academia (she considered us as adults) and I can attest that it was very satisfying.