Older Adult Noncredit Courses
Through the Older Adult program, MPC offers free, noncredit classes for students at a variety of locations throughout the Monterey Peninsula, supported in part through taxpayer dollars. Older Adult courses have no minimum age requirement; however, curriculum is designed to meet the interests and lifestyle of older adults.
Students are admitted to the college and follow the registration and class schedules in the MPC academic calendar. Registration can be processed online or by phone with a credit card. To register, refer to the published Schedule of Classes or call 831-646-4002.
Art (ART)
ART 431 - Drawing and Composition (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 51 hours lab
Techniques of drawing and principles of composition are emphasized in this course. Students will work in a variety of media. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing ART 431
Gentrain (GENT)
GENT 401 - Prehistory and Earliest Civilizations (To 1200 B.C.) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults and begins with a brief look at human origins and the earliest cave paintings, and then moves on to study the history, literature, religion, and visual culture of two of the earliest cultures on the planet: Sumeria and Egypt. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 401
GENT 402 - Foundations of the Classical World (1200-500 B.C.) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to examine the Minoan culture and then the concurrent cultures of the Mycenaean Greeks, Neo-Babylonians, Hittites, and the Old Testament Hebrews, focusing on history, visual culture, religion, and literature. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 402
GENT 403 - The Golden Age of Greece (500-300 B.C.) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to examine the two centuries which shaped all subsequent Western history: the Golden Age of Greece. The Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, the rise of Greek democracy, the beginnings of philosophy (Plato and Aristotle), Greek theatre, and Greek visual culture are some of the topics treated. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 403
GENT 404A - The Roman Republic and Rise of Empire (500 B.C.-14 A.D.) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
This course is designed for Older Adults to examine the origins of the Roman Republic and its transition to an Empire under Augustus, considering such topics as law, engineering, military tactics, political institutions, literature, religion and philosophy, and visual culture. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 404A
GENT 405 - The Medieval World: Part I (400-1100) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
This course is designed for Older Adults to look at the Western world after the collapse of the Roman Empire and then trace the incursion of the Germanic tribes into various territories, wherein a unique culture was produced by the combination of Roman, Christian, and Germanic elements. Contemporaneous developments in the Byzantine Empire will also be investigated. Religion, visual culture, philosophy, and literature will be examined within these diverse contexts in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 405
GENT 406 - The Medieval World: Part II (1100-1350) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
This course is designed for Older Adults to study the period sometimes called “the first Renaissance”: the Christian age of Europe – the age of Thomas Aquinas, cathedrals, the Crusades, courtly love, and Dante. It is also an age of economic recovery, urban expansion, and the establishment of universities. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 406
GENT 407 - The Early Renaissance (1350-1520) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
This course is designed for Older Adults to examine the changes in Western life and thought that resulted from the rediscovery of the classical ages of Greece and Rome, known as the “Renaissance.” It features many of the places, figures, and events that define the era, including Florence, the Medici, the growth of trade, the Hundred Years War, Humanism, new music, philosophy, Machiavelli, Chaucer, and visual culture including Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 407
GENT 408 - Late Renaissance and Reformation (1520-1600) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to examine the events and some of the consequences of the Protestant Reformation in Northern Europe, while Southern Europe is in the last flowering of the Renaissance in literature, art, philosophy, and music. The works of Michelangelo, Cervantes and Shakespeare are featured. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 408
GENT 409 - Foundations of the Modern World (1600-1690) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
This course is designed for Older Adults to consider the period in which the foundation for the modern world was established, characterized by devastating religious wars and the creation of the absolute state by Louis XIV (and the building of Versailles as a symbol of that state), but also the emergence of democracy in England, the revolutionary philosophies of Descartes and Hobbes, the art of Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, and literature including the metaphysical poets and John Milton. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 409
GENT 410 - The Age of Reason (1690-1775) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults and deals with the age of rationalism in Western history based on the philosophies of Leibniz, Locke, Hume, and Berkeley. It also examines the triumph of the bourgeoisie in English politics in the modifications of the social contract theory (which likewise becomes the basis for the American Declaration of Independence) , the beginnings of the novel, movements in the arts, the reaction to all of this in the great Evangelical Movements across Europe and America, and the foundations – in war and economics – for the French Revolution. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 410
GENT 411 - Reaction and Revolution (1775-1815) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to study the causes, events, central figures and consequences of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic age. Additionally, it examines the connections between this historical foundation and the philosophy, literature and art, including such figures as Rousseau, Kant, Wordsworth, Goethe, Goya and Beethoven. The Romantic Movement ties together both the political and cultural events of the period. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 411
GENT 412 - The Age of Progress (1815-1870) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to examine the Industrial Revolution and some of its most important consequences, positive and negative. It also looks at the second generation of Romanticism in music, art and literature, in part as a response to industrialization, and the way the disillusionments of Romanticism led into the Realism in the arts. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 412
GENT 413 - The End of Innocence (1870-1918) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to investigate the forces of Nationalism that shaped Europe leading up to and including World War I. It also explains the meaning and importance of the age of “isms”: Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Marxism and Freudianism. It culminates with World War I and the Russian Revolution. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 413
GENT 414 - Between the Wars (1918-1945) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to examine the period leading up to and including World War II. It examines such topics as Communism and Stalinism and the rise of fascism, the impact of the Great Depression, and cultural responses to the challenges of the period, including radical new kinds of art, literature, philosophy, and music. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 414
GENT 415 - World War II to the Present (1945-Present) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
The course is designed for Older Adults to examine the selected aspects of world history and culture since 1945, including such topics as the Cold War and the succession of wars that followed World War II, and the rapid development of movements in art, literature and philosophy in response to a rapidly changing world. These will be studied in order to draw universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing GENT 415
Music (MUSI)
MUSI 495 - Special Topics in Music (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 34 hours lab
This Older Adult course is designed to study, in a structured group situation, topics in music. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing MUSI 495
Horticulture (HORT)
HORT 425 - Successful Gardening Techniques (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 34 hours lab
This course covers fundamental horticultural techniques for home gardeners including tool selection and maintenance, pruning, soil management, planting, fertilizing, irrigation, and pest and disease control. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing HORT 425
Theatre Arts (THEA)
THEA 440 - Rehearsal and Performance (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 102 hours lab
Older adults receive instruction in how to rehearse and perform in a full-length play or series of scenes. Body and vocal techniques, and memorization and consistency are emphasized. The course culminates in a complete production with emphasis on ensemble organization and technical aspects of production. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit
Catalog Program Pages Referencing THEA 440
World Civilization (WRLD)
WRLD 404B - The Roman Empire (14 - 600 CE) (0 units)
Non Credit • Total hours: 17 hours lecture
This course is designed for Older Adults to examine the Roman Empire from the time of Emperor Tiberius to its decline in the West and its legacy in the East as the Byzantine Empire. Political administration, visual culture, philosophy, religion, and literature are studied in order to develop universal observations that will enable Older Adults to understand constructions of family, community, and historical global issues as they relate to their lives. Portions of instruction may be offered online; may also be offered fully online.
Repeatable: Noncredit