Why Your Next Favorite Class Might Not Be at Kellogg

By: Shashank Narayan

Tuesday, 12:00pm. While most students are waiting in line at Gordon's, or on their way to a Lunch & Learn, Josh Park (MMM ’27) sprints across campus to his class in Kresge Hall, home to Northwestern's Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. For the next 90 minutes, he sits in an intimate, 10-person class taught exclusively in Korean. "You can never rest," he says. "You can never just chill from it, and you can't hide because there's only 10 people."

Each quarter, a small cohort of students like Josh use cross-registering as a way to escape the monotony of the Kellogg bubble and reconnect with their identity and interests. For them, the extra class isn't a burden, but a battery that energizes the other parts of their life.

For those unfamiliar with cross-registering, here's how it works. Students can take up to one credit each quarter from any other school within the greater Northwestern ecosystem.

Languages, art, computer science, design—you name it! These credits count towards your five-credit quarterly cap and your GPA, but they don’t automatically count towards your degree. To cross-register, you need to reach out to the department offering the class directly, get a permission code, and send it to the Kellogg registrar. It’s not complicated, but it requires self-initiative and passion.

To gain some insight on what cross-registration might look like in practice, I talked to three students taking very different classes: Lia Franco (music), Josh (Korean literature), and Sabari Sunil (video game development).

Lia Franco (2Y ’26): The High Note of Her Schedule

Lia Franco (MBA ’26) performing at last year’s Kellogg Kurated; the experience that led her to bring music back into her life

Growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, music and theater were a central part of Lia's (2Y, ’26) childhood. She started violin at age five and sang through high school. After studying chemical engineering and starting her career at Pfizer as an R&D scientist, she found music quietly falling away. At Kellogg, she found the time and space to pursue music again, joining Special K! and performing in Kellogg Kurated. "Being on a stage and performing and singing—it just brought me a lot of joy," she says. "That was the turning point where I was like, I need to make sure I don't drop this."

Lia is now taking private vocal lessons through Northwestern's Bienen School of Music for non-majors. Classes are offered in a simple format: one-on-one sessions with an instructor, flexible scheduling, and a requirement to attend at least three live vocal performances in the quarter. There are no exams or group projects, just her and her instructor in a soundproof practice room working on technique. "It's kind of meditative," she says.

The positive effects of the class carry outside the practice room. As Vocal Director for this year's Special K!, Lia uses what she’s learning in private lessons to help teach people who've never performed before feel ready on stage. Even on unrelated work, the class provides benefits she didn't expect by improving her overall mood. "An assignment that might have taken me three hours if I was depressed and tired takes me 20 minutes when I'm energized." The vocal lessons are part of a conscious decision to build sustainable habits for resilience.

Josh Park (MMM ’27): A Global Immersion Close to Home

Josh Park (MMM '27, center) with Professor Eunmi Lee and his classmates at Kresge Hall. The book he's holding reads "한국어" — Korean

After spending the first six years of his life bouncing between Korean and American cities, Josh Park's family settled in the states. His family assimilated quickly, and Josh found that by the time he started college, he'd lost most of his native language. He tried taking Korean classes, but due to friction and competing priorities it never stuck until now. "When I decided to apply for an MBA, I told myself no matter what, I'm gonna try to take a Korean class," he says.

This quarter, he's in an advanced Korean literature course reading novels and short stories. They meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30 to 1:50 and 95% of the instruction is in Korean. When the professor introduces a new word, she doesn't switch to English; she explains it using simpler Korean, the way you'd teach a child. It’s a rigorous class, and the workload reflects that. He spends an hour each day on his assignments and spent close to ten hours preparing a five-minute presentation earlier this quarter.

For Josh, this isn't just about taking a class. He's thinking about building a system to stay connected with Korean long term. He plans to join the Korean Business Association next year, and he's reaching out to his Korean friends to practice with him. In this way, the learning won't stop when the quarter ends.

When asked if the payoff is worth the effort, Josh's reply emphasizes the personal growth and connection opportunities. "The value of taking a class outside of Kellogg may not necessarily help you in your career," he says. "But it at least makes you more interesting as a person."

Sabari Sunil (MBAi ’27): 20 Hours of Homework, Zero Complaints

Sabari Sunil (MBAi '27, left) with teammates Josh (center) and Jason (right), building their factory-combat game. The laptop screen shows their game engine in progress.

Sabari Sunil's lifelong dream is to build his own video game. An MBAi student from India, Sabari doesn't just play video games—he sees them as an art form and spends his free time studying and analyzing obscure indie titles and watching deep dives on YouTube. So, when his computational thinking professor mentioned a game development class in McCormick, he didn't think twice. "I was like, I don't care! I want in."

CS 377: Game Development Studio meets Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:30 to 5:00 at the Tech Institute. There are no exams and the entire grade is building a video game! The course walks the students through game design concepts and by week four, teams are formed and they begin planning the game. Each team of two or three has roughly 40 days to produce five minutes of gameplay. Visuals don't matter. "You can put a simple box and call it a player and that's fine," Sabari says. "What's important is: is the playtester having fun?"

Sabari’s team is putting in 15-20 hours each week building a game that mashes up the gameplay of two of their favorite titles: Hades and Factorio. The player is a robot stranded in a wasteland with a nano-factory inside their body that produces ammo, shields, and upgrades. The idea came about as most game ideas do: through the team talking about the games they love and building creatively off each other.

For Sabari, this class fills a gap that Kellogg can't. "More than coding, and more than the analytical part of my mind, it's the creative part," he says. "You don't really get to be too creative in business school."

The Kellogg skills naturally show up too. He's quietly become the Product Manager of his team, scheduling meetings and keeping everyone on track.

The class, interestingly, has also meant more time at the Hub. He's spent more time in the Kellogg study lounge because coding requires a different kind of focus than case prep.

Of course, cross-registering isn't a seamless experience. There are some logistical adjustments since Kellogg's schedule doesn't align with the rest of Northwestern. Josh barely has time for lunch before his 12:30 class on south campus, and Sabari’s class meets Mondays and Wednesdays instead of the typical Kellogg Monday/Thursday.

There's also a social adjustment. Josh was worried about being the oldest person in the room, and he is. "The teacher is like, 'you're 30,'" he laughs, but the age gap doesn't show up regularly. "I don't really feel the discrepancy unless they're talking about their jobs or relationships." The grading is also different, and the credits don't count toward your degree unless you petition for approval. None of these are dealbreakers, but they're worth knowing going in.

While logistics are a factor, the biggest barrier to cross-registering is just awareness. "People just don't know what's out there," Josh says. "Take the initiative." Read More by Shashank Narayan: At TechCrunch Disrupt, Three Technologies Hit Their Breaking Point at Once