After the smashing success of NYU’s Big Ideas courses in fall 2020, faculty across the Global Network University have come together to offer an innovative new portfolio of courses for spring 2021. While similar to its predecessor in many ways, instead of addressing the great themes of our present moment, the new curricular initiative seeks to help us, students, answer the other questions on our minds — or at least were on our minds until we got distracted by a surveillance bird pecking at our window.

Available to any student enrolled at any site, the new Small Ideas courses are set to be this spring’s hottest new classes — a surprise to many given the program’s origins.

“Transitioning from Big Ideas to Small Ideas seemed like a fitting next step,” exclaimed NYU President Handy Amilton. “We took a bold and exciting program with real potential and turned it into something befuddling and underwhelming. It truly embodies NYU’s approach to education.”

“Big Ideas don’t belong in the classroom!” continued history professor Kondemd Turepeetit. “Big Ideas are for late-night conversations under the stars, pre-rehearsed interview responses, and the occasional psychedelic trip. They have no place in my seminar.”

Regardless of the philosophy behind the initiative, it seems that in this year of perpetual overwhelm, students are flocking to the quaint, un-ambitious scope of Small Ideas courses.

The titularly resonant NODEP-UA 121 “Smolness,” for example, will ask students to contemplate how newborn kittens, Fennec foxes, and guinea pigs dressed in hand knit sweaters manage to contain so much cuteness in their adorable little bodies. On the other end of the spectrum, NODEP-UA 214 “Titillating Tongue Twisters” promises to teach all those who enroll how to Pleasantly Pluck Mother Pheasants and what to do should the Sixth Sheikh’s Soft Sheared Sheep get Sick.

For those who don’t quite feel ready to specialize, the Small Ideas program also offers a survey course to introduce questions just big enough to make them think for a few seconds before moving on to something else. Those who enroll can expect to face the minor mysteries such as: “If Cinderella’s shoe fit perfectly, why did it fall off?”; “If Apple made a car would it come with Windows pre-installed?”; and “Why does ‘fridge’ have a ‘D,’ but ‘refrigerator’ does not?”

This selection of Small Ideas, however, are but a subset of the truly expansive catalog. Specifically, while some of the Small Ideas courses retain their progenitor’s trait of being largely unresolvable, many Small Ideas classes address concepts so tiny that they require only the minimal amount of mental application to fully understand.

A popular recommendation between suitemates, no course exemplifies this principle better than NODEP-UA 102 “Washing Your Goddamn Dishes.” In a similar vein, for those having trouble connecting with the cute boy whose Zoom window you always pin, NODEP-UA 231 “Texting Twice to Keep the Conversation Going” might help your crush finally understand this incredibly basic concept.

There are some Small Ideas courses, however, that all of us would do well to enroll in. NODEP-UA 145 “Treating Contract Staff Like Full Members of the Community Because They Are” is a must for everyone planning to return to campus. Similarly, all of our relationships would benefit from exploring the small idea examined in NODEP-UA 314 “Asking ‘How are you?’ Because You Actually Want to Know.” Just because an idea is small doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.

“Yeah, no. Not for me,” said Nory Fleksun, Class of 2022. “I’d much rather wax poetic about abstract things I have no control over. Why would I take a class about the little things I could do to better myself? I came to university to be complacent!”

“Yeah, screw little moments of humanity!” added Insek Uriti, Class of 2023. “What good is an ivory tower if you can’t use it to look down at people?!”

Despite enthusiasm from students and faculty alike, many members of the NYU community remain skeptical of the Small Ideas program. Regardless of their reasons, many worry that the university has lost its way – perhaps none more than Dean of Student Life Wurst Yirsuvurlyfe.

“Never let your university experience be defined by small ideas,” pleaded Yirsuvurlyfe. “Those fleeting moments of foolish whimsy and arresting sorrow that glitter in your mind: abandon them. We all know the quality of a conversation should be judged solely by its intellectual pretensions. Why would you spend 10 minutes helping your friend fight a vending machine over some Sour Patch Kids when you could soliloquize past each other in three hours of self-absorbed ego-stroking? If this university is asking students to loosen up and appreciate the little things, we’ve failed them on every conceivable level.”