Commentary “Take a basket-weaving course,” is an old saying university students use when they want to boost their grades. It’s a humorous way of poking fun at the many “mickey mouse” courses offered at universities in which students can get high grades without doing much work. While actual basket-weaving courses are rare, useless courses are not a myth. For example, hand drumming, witchcraft, gothic horror, dance psychology, and movie soundtracks are but a few of the actual courses offered at Canadian universities. Needless to say, they aren’t likely to help students gain useful skills for the job market, but they will, undoubtedly, get them high grades for very little effort. It’s bad enough when students waste their time taking one useless course. Now imagine completing an entire PhD program in a totally irrelevant and obscure field. Think of the thousands of hours and potentially tens of thousands of dollars of …