20. THE BEATLES
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The College: Liverpool Hope University
Just because you think you’ve deciphered the meaning of “I Am the Walrus” doesn’t make you an expert on the Fab Four. But earning an M.A. in The Beatles, Popular Music & Society can go a long way to upping your Liverpool street cred. Established in 2009, the program explores the role popular music has played over the past 50 years, using The Beatles as a case study. Not surprisingly, you’ll need to travel to the band’s birthplace—sometimes called “The World Capital City of Pop”—to do it. Also not surprisingly: The program is the only one of its kind in the world.
19. CANNABIS CULTIVATION
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The College: Oaksterdam University
Leave it to California to open the country’s first cannabis college. Then again, considering the thriving—and legal—industry that exists for medicinal marijuana in The Golden State, it really only makes sense that there would be a trade school for the cannabis industry. And one where classes in the history, politics, and legalities of herb are taught alongside seminars on growing and methods of ingestion. But don’t be surprised if your classroom time gets interrupted by a raid by the Feds; that’s exactly what happened in April of 2012, when a bevy of DEA, IRS, and U.S. Marshals Service agents showed up on the school’s doorstep.
18. COMEDY
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The College: Humber College
Think you’re funny? Whip out your diploma and prove it. Toronto’s Humber College takes its laughs seriously with its Comedy: Writing and Performance program, aimed at helping sort of funny people become really funny people by perfecting their comedic timing and understanding of how the funny business works, utilizing a faculty of working comedians and putting on weekly shows at the nearby Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club and an industry showcase at Second City—all in the name of making it big in stand-up, improv, sketch comedy and/or screenwriting.
17. FERMENTATION SCIENCES
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The College: Appalachian State University
As tempted as one might be to call this a degree in beer-making, there’s a lot more to a career in suds than cracking open a cold one. The official description of this B.S. is “an interdisciplinary degree within the College of Arts and Sciences intended to provide students with a strong background in chemistry and biology and a considerable focus in business, marketing, and entrepreneurial principles.” Hands-on experience comes courtesy of the Ivory Tower Brewery, an on-campus, nonprofit brewery and plant managed by the school’s students and faculty. We’ll drink to that!
16. SEXUALITY
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The College: San Francisco State University
A career in sex doesn’t have to come with an X rating. The M.A. degree at SFSU is an academic program more than five decades in the making, where students immerse themselves in a wide range of topics surrounding human sexuality, from its representation in arts and literature to social justice for sexual minorities. It’s academia at its most titillating.
