Given the music preferences for today’s college students, perhaps the scholars who proposed a new course for one South Carolina college thought this topic might be suited for ancient history?

College students who also happen to be fans of the Grateful Dead may share their appreciation for this legendary rock band’s eclectic style by putting up a poster or two in their dorm room. What these students should know is it’s not uncommon for colleges and universities to offer courses focused on the group, which was fronted by the late Jerry Garcia.

South Carolina’s Wofford College is the latest school to offer a class on the Grateful Dead. According to the institution’s website, “Innovation, Improvisation and the Grateful Dead” is being offered as a non-traditional course during Wofford’s Interim 2014. What makes this class so unique is the fact that students not only learn about the band and the nature of creativity, but how to play some of the group’s songs on the harmonica and ukulele.

“If you study the Grateful Dead, you could end up studying history, sociology, philosophy,” Jeremy Jones, one of the course’s professors, told the Spartanburg Herald Journal. “It’s a dialogue between rules and no rules, structure and no structure. This is a liberal arts college, and what we want the students to do is think across the disciplines. It’s just this great big stew of music and ideas, and they’re having a ball.”

Wofford isn’t the first school to explore the Grateful Dead’s educational potential. In 2007, the University of Massachusetts Amherst started offering a course titled “How Does the Song Go? The Grateful Dead as Window into American Culture,” according to The Boston Globe. This class was designed to use the band as a way to explore the greater themes of the 1960s and beyond.

Such courses just go to show how important it is for students to read their course catalogs. They could be missing out on a chance to learn about their favorite band.