By Mitch Streufert

The daily grind of college life can be stressful and draining. Day after day, students are overextending themselves, in order to perform well in all areas of their studies. One way to ease the stress of the daily grind is to enroll in one of the many health and sport sciences classes that the University of Louisville offers each semester. The classes that are offered range anywhere from tennis to hip-hop aerobics.
These classes are relatively unknown to many students across campus, but students who take these classes say they are a great way to have fun during the semester.
“I was looking up classes to take for the 2009 spring semester, saw volleyball, and couldn’t even believe that it was a course I could take,” said sophomore sport administration major Chris O’Shea. “The class was such a relief from all the stressful classes I took, like economics. For an hour every Tuesday and Thursday I just went to class and had fun.”
Not only do these classes give students a chance to relieve stress, but they also help students stay physically active as well. 
“I’m a nursing major, so I’m super busy at night studying,” said senior Abby Webster. “Aerobics class was a great way for me to stay in shape when I couldn’t get to the gym at night. Aerobics helped me get into a consistent routine day in and day out.”
Another perk to these classes is the possibility of meeting other students outside of your major discipline courses. These classes contain freshman and seniors alike, so it provides a more diverse student group than many other classes.
According to students, the instructors who teach these classes are very helpful as well. They have office hours like any other professor, but are often easier to approach and more understanding.
“The teachers were really understanding when I would have to miss a class for some reason,” said Cody Duvall, a senior political science major. “They treated it like it was an extracurricular class, not a core content class.”
Not only are these classes relatively stress-free, they can give a boost to a student’s GPA. The classes are only worth one credit hour, but generally only require students to attend class and fulfill the curriculum, in order to do well. Instructors tend to grade based on participation, rather than athletic ability.
Regardless of the initial reasons that students enroll in these health and sport sciences classes, they often complete them with a greater knowledge, and sometimes even a newfound love, of the sport. 
“When I first started taking my tennis class, I was clueless on the rules, strategy, basically everything about the sport,” said sophomore computer engineering major Matt Thomas. “I just got done completing the class a couple of weeks ago, since the class is only 9 weeks long. And I really miss going to that class.”