Class ACROYNM?
June 19, 2008 12:16 PM Subscribe
I'm trying to come up with a course name that offers a clear description of the curriculum and avoids an awkwardly verbose title. I think I need a clever acronym.
This course will be a prerequisite to a number of established renewable energy and sustainable building courses and has thus far held various working titles: Energy Fundamentals, Fundamentals of Home Energy Supply, Introduction to Renewable Energies, Foundations of Renewable Technologies, and others. None offers a complete or clear enough definition of the course contents--which include supply-side energy production considerations; electricity/energy basics; heating/cooling, electrical, and hot water efficiency and conservation practices and design; and (just teasers of) PV, wind, microhydro, solar hot water, and passive solar systems and design.
If it helps, it'll be likely that more than half of this course's students will be interested in a career in PV design/installation and will be more or less ignorant to the benefits of home efficiency upgrades.
Wordsmiths, what would you call this class?
This course will be a prerequisite to a number of established renewable energy and sustainable building courses and has thus far held various working titles: Energy Fundamentals, Fundamentals of Home Energy Supply, Introduction to Renewable Energies, Foundations of Renewable Technologies, and others. None offers a complete or clear enough definition of the course contents--which include supply-side energy production considerations; electricity/energy basics; heating/cooling, electrical, and hot water efficiency and conservation practices and design; and (just teasers of) PV, wind, microhydro, solar hot water, and passive solar systems and design.
If it helps, it'll be likely that more than half of this course's students will be interested in a career in PV design/installation and will be more or less ignorant to the benefits of home efficiency upgrades.
Wordsmiths, what would you call this class?
Speaking as a student, I prefer descriptive course titles that can be condensed the way adamrice describes. Adamrice's suggestion is a good title. There's a reason why courses have a title and a description. Keep in mind that this course will end up on a student's transcript one day and a clever acronym might not tell an employer or graduate studies admission committee anything useful about the content of the course.
posted by KevCed at 12:27 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by KevCed at 12:27 PM on June 19, 2008
Response by poster: I'm sorry. I should have made it clear that I intended the for acronym be used mostly as an in-house or in-class shorthand and that the full title of the course would be used for anything official... or at least "ACRONYM: Full Title of the Course" or "Full Title of the Course (ACRONYM)" or something similar.
posted by glibhamdreck at 12:33 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by glibhamdreck at 12:33 PM on June 19, 2008
I'd go with something plain but informative: Fundamentals of Renewable Energy Production and Use for Homes. Adam Rice's suggestion is also good.
posted by oddman at 12:36 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by oddman at 12:36 PM on June 19, 2008
Choose "Renewable Energy Fundamentals." Then for short it can be Renewable Fun!
Also, the nickname doesn't have to go with the title of the course. In college I took a course called "Introduction to Failure Analysis." The shorthand (coined by the prof) was "Crack."
posted by olinerd at 12:43 PM on June 19, 2008
Also, the nickname doesn't have to go with the title of the course. In college I took a course called "Introduction to Failure Analysis." The shorthand (coined by the prof) was "Crack."
posted by olinerd at 12:43 PM on June 19, 2008
Fundamentals of Residential Renewable Energy. If you need a four letter class code (i.e. ENGL101), I would go with RNEW. ENGR is too close to engineering.
posted by electroboy at 12:45 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by electroboy at 12:45 PM on June 19, 2008
Living with Energy Saving Systems - LESS
or
Models Of Renewable Energy - MORE.
posted by jamjam at 12:52 PM on June 19, 2008
or
Models Of Renewable Energy - MORE.
posted by jamjam at 12:52 PM on June 19, 2008
Sustainable Residential Energy.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 1:08 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by spaceman_spiff at 1:08 PM on June 19, 2008
None offers a complete or clear enough definition of the course contents--which include supply-side energy production considerations; electricity/energy basics; heating/cooling, electrical, and hot water efficiency and conservation practices and design; and (just teasers of) PV, wind, microhydro, solar hot water, and passive solar systems and design.
"Cooling, Heating, Energy production, Wind, Solar, Photovoltaics, Efficiency, Conservation, Microhydro, Electricity, and Water" (CHEW SPECS MEW)
Or "Sustainability 1".
posted by Mike1024 at 1:16 PM on June 19, 2008
"Cooling, Heating, Energy production, Wind, Solar, Photovoltaics, Efficiency, Conservation, Microhydro, Electricity, and Water" (CHEW SPECS MEW)
Or "Sustainability 1".
posted by Mike1024 at 1:16 PM on June 19, 2008
Response by poster: It's important to the powers that be that the concept of "efficiency" is included in the title.
posted by glibhamdreck at 1:50 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by glibhamdreck at 1:50 PM on June 19, 2008
Foundations and Topics in Renewable Residential Technologies? If it's a pre-req for their bigger dreams, I'm not sure too many of your students are going to be considering the title when deciding whether to take your course. Presumably the course catalog will give you a few lines to describe what's covered in the course, also? (I once was sucked into a class entitled "The Meaning of Life." It was craptastic and taught me always to read course descriptions and course reviews a hell of a lot more carefully before registering.)
posted by bluenausea at 1:52 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by bluenausea at 1:52 PM on June 19, 2008
Jesus, no. No acronyms. No clever shit with the title.
Does the course have a title already? Then leave it alone. If it doesn't, then "Introduction to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy." That is all you need.
It does not matter in the slightest to anyone on Earth or beyond whether the title is a complete and clear definition of the entire course contents.
If you are concerned about what people will think when they see the course title, then your worry should be "How can I maximize the number of buzzwords that humorless HR people will see?" Except that it's an intro and prereq, so that shouldn't matter. You could call it "Underwater Butt-Fucking For Terrorists" and nobody would care so long as the students also have "Photovoltaic Installation" and "Home Energy Auditing" and so forth on their transcripts.
It does not need an abbreviation or acronym. Your in-house shorthand can be simply "104" or whatever the course number is. Or, if you don't have course numbers or the course number will not identify it readily enough, you can call it whatever the fuck you want, including "My intro course," completely irrespective of what the course title actually is.
The in-class shorthand is simple: "This course."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:42 PM on June 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
Does the course have a title already? Then leave it alone. If it doesn't, then "Introduction to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy." That is all you need.
It does not matter in the slightest to anyone on Earth or beyond whether the title is a complete and clear definition of the entire course contents.
If you are concerned about what people will think when they see the course title, then your worry should be "How can I maximize the number of buzzwords that humorless HR people will see?" Except that it's an intro and prereq, so that shouldn't matter. You could call it "Underwater Butt-Fucking For Terrorists" and nobody would care so long as the students also have "Photovoltaic Installation" and "Home Energy Auditing" and so forth on their transcripts.
It does not need an abbreviation or acronym. Your in-house shorthand can be simply "104" or whatever the course number is. Or, if you don't have course numbers or the course number will not identify it readily enough, you can call it whatever the fuck you want, including "My intro course," completely irrespective of what the course title actually is.
The in-class shorthand is simple: "This course."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:42 PM on June 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
Fundamentals of Renewable Energy Supplies for the Home
Fundamentals of Renewable/Efficient Energy (FREE)
posted by LionIndex at 3:15 PM on June 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
Fundamentals of Renewable/Efficient Energy (FREE)
posted by LionIndex at 3:15 PM on June 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
Fundamentals of Energy-Efficient Technologies (FEET)
posted by slopepheasant at 5:31 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by slopepheasant at 5:31 PM on June 19, 2008
Efficient Application of Renewable Technologies for the Home (EARTH)
posted by platinum at 6:14 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by platinum at 6:14 PM on June 19, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by adamrice at 12:23 PM on June 19, 2008