US colleges last one year longer, and the first year is more academically similar to the last year of high school in Europe.
US colleges have a very open curriculum, where you have wide leeway in what classes you actually take, especially in the early years of study. If you're coming from more European-style universities, this is vastly different to the relatively rigid course set you'd take (with a few electives here and there).
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a pretty normal thing in a few countries or regions in the world. Marksmanship and archery are also olympic sports.
It would be an easy “A” for a lot of people in the US!
Yeah, in Russia even thought everything is decided for you once you've selected your major, PE classes still for you to choose. Competition to get in was crazy too, none of that "first come, first served" - swimming only accepted top N students, table tennis held a tournament style competition (I went there with two friends and I had to play against both of them).
US colleges still have far more options, though.
It's definitely not common. My US university required 2 physical education classes, but only if you were under 30 and hadn't served in the military. They may have offered marksmanship, but I just took running and soccer (aka football). The classes were graded pass-fail and didn't even count for academic credit.
Re:How Quake.exe got its TCP/IP stack
by stronglikedan on Tuesday November 18, 2025 @10:23AM
(#45967443)
We have myriad available "electives" that contribute towards our degrees. I have college credit for "bowling and billiards" and "canoeing and kayaking".
Re:How Quake.exe got its TCP/IP stack
by expressadmin on Tuesday November 18, 2025 @10:41AM
(#45967708)
MIT offers a Pirate Certificate: https://physicaleducationandwellness.mit.edu/about/pirate-ce...
I took an 8-week, 1-credit badminton course to fulfill my PE requirements. I wouldn't be surprised to find a marksmanship course.
Re:How Quake.exe got its TCP/IP stack
by cardiffspaceman on Tuesday November 18, 2025 @12:11PM
(#45969075)
My college required its graduates to pass a minimal swimming test. Just enough swimming ability to give a potential rescuer some extra time to effect the rescue, rather than have us go straight to the bottom of the sea. We all took a test in the first week or so. Those who failed had to take a course and retake the test.
I needed one PE credit to get a degree from my community college. My school didn't offer marksmanship, but I would imagine it would fit into PE, archery certainly would and there's synergy. I took Table Tennis to graduate. I don't think my engineering school where I got my BS required Physical Education though.
Re:How Quake.exe got its TCP/IP stack
by kevin_thibedeau on Tuesday November 18, 2025 @03:44PM
(#45971769)
My high school had some marksmanship trophy's in their case dating back to the 70s. Responsible gun ownership was a real thing when a sizable portion of the male population were veterans.
As a sibling poster mentions, US universities often have a very open curriculum. At my university, I got PE credit for classical fencing!
The marching band could also count for PE credit. I believe you could only get credit for one semester for it, and my university required two semesters of PE, so I gave fencing a try, having never fenced before.
So I just took a look at DJ’s website and he has a college transcript there. Something looked interesting.
Apparently he passed a marksmanship PE course at the first year. Is that a thing in US? I don’t know, maybe its common and I have no idea. I’d love to have a marksmanship course while studying computer science though.