My thinking was that I was better off spending time in college on things I was unlikely to learn otherwise. So despite my interest in history and politics, I took classes in math and French; my thinking was that I was far more likely to learn history by reading and discussion later than to learn math or French that way. (This was certainly influenced by being 23, and having a good sense of what I enjoyed reading and thinking about, when I began college.)

I continue 15 years later to be glad to have chosen that way.

Avoidance is a really interesting way to think about it. Makes me think about it–I think I sort of had a logic like that at times. I wouldn’t quite call it avoidance as much as I’d call it over-management of my lifetime agenda–e.g., I thought I had a master plan and only began to realize that I didn’t really know what I was doing when I was well into it.

Scheduling and coincidence are important. Also what David mentioned in his comment: sticking with peer groups.

1) Coincidence. I was not entirely motivated to be a Spanish minor, but I discovered at the last moment during seminar scheduling my Fall Junior Year that the Spanish seminar available was scheduled to conflict with a history seminar I’d already scheduled–so in a panic I scampered into an available English seminar, and became an English minor. (Without ever having taken an upper-level English course–something I’ve always felt was a tricksterish triumph on my part.)

2) Avoidance. I already knew junior year what sort of history I wanted to study in grad school, so I deliberately avoided taking history seminars in that area, because I figured I could learn it later.

Also, for your first category, I would expand it (in my case) to include “obliviousness.” “Don’t care about the professor” isn’t quite right; “didn’t consider asking about the professor until I was already in the class, and then thought, hmm, maybe I should have asked.”

That is except for the last two years in which I wanted to enroll in classes that two particularly attractive coeds were taking. This led me to taking more classes in German and English than I had originally planned, and ultimately led to an accumulation of enough hours in German to qualify as a secondary teacher of that language in Texas, which I did for a few years. My pursuit of the two coeds came to naught, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

To me, college was all about socialization. My first seventeen years were spent in a rural Texas town that was virtually cut off from the rest of the world. I had a lot of learning to do. I was truly a hick, but now have been somewhat civilized so that I call myself a country boy.

Academically, I attended three colleges: Tulane, Tarleton State Junior College, and Baylor University. I learned a lot of math at the first two and almost none at the second, even though I finished with 52 semester hours in the subject. Baylor was, and probably still is, an academic wasteland. But it was a hoot to go to school with the ministers-in-training. Several of them became ministers of Baptist churches, mostly in the South. I counted them as friends and over the decades it was a pleasure to learn what they thought about domestic politics. Sadly they have all passed on to their rewards.

I found a certain freedom in following the rules and checking off the requirements. It would have been even better if the requirements allowed for more choice (I was at a public university, with “state” in its title, so it wasn’t really all that difficult).

I’m not sure what this says for defining the curriculum. But if the rules are clear and relatively non-onerous, I believe such a state will let all (or as many as possible) flowers bloom.

*Due caveats about my lack of ambition and my eventual decision to get an MA in history (good idea) and PHD in history (bad idea, but at least I’ve got one)