system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Harry Potter] What's Muggle Studies like?

And how has the curriculum changed over the years?
gpt
It's probably treated a lot like any cultural studies course. They learn history, politics, culture, the big difference is that they need to cover science & technology but not on a fundamental level, more how it is used as a replacement for magic in the muggle world. 

Muggle Studies probably didn't exist as a formal discipline of study until the muggle and wizarding worlds had diverged technologically enough to warrant making its study necessary. Going by the movies and books, technology and tools in the wizarding world don't seem to have progressed a lot past early 19th century, so Muggle studies probably didn't really 'begin' until the 1850s. Before this time all witches and wizards needed to learn about was the Statute of Secrecy (1692) which is "avoid muggles, don't get caught doing magic" and everything else was covered in their own history courses.

Early curriculum would have likely been to treat the muggle world in a very othered and sensationalized way due to the lingering prejudices of the dark ages when many witches and wizards were persecuted and burned at the stake.

The class would heavily go into how warlike and aggressive muggles were, the dangers of gunpowder and rifles, and how backward muggles were for having to create so many strange contraptions to accomplish things magic could easily handle.

The class would remain this way and continue to be behind the times until the early 20th century. By this time muggle culture and technology are changing far more quickly than the wizarding worlds. The global muggle economy, backed by a fiat currency in many places takes off like a rocket due to expanding money supply while the wizarding world (stuck using a gold standard) cannot expand nearly as rapidly due to the limited quantities of gold (philosophers' stones notwithstanding). At this time some wizards might begin to try to study the muggle world in earnest, but the pureblood class who hold most of the wealth and positions of power continue to look down on the muggle world. Muggle studies remains a niche subject at best because the people who matter don't see its importance. Those who do study it are hopelessly out of their depth, get much wrong, which leads to it being even less respected.

The best source of information on the muggle world at this period in time would be wizards and witches with no magical blood at all, due to their need to maintain a connection with the friends and family in the muggle world, but pureblood prejudice in high circles remains. Not to mention that these witches and wizards, having discovered magic is real, are hardly likely to devote their time and energy to the muggle world they left behind. 

Attitudes begin to change after the first World War. Now, even if they consider Muggles as inferiors, Muggle conflicts are growing in both scope and destructive potential. The Ministry of Magic, despite having contact with muggle government, cannot understand what actions to take and policy to develop because they don't understand the muggle world. There is a limited push for Muggle Studies to be taken more seriously, and a limited amount of funding for research, outreach, and other programs. It's probably around now that enough enterprising wizards take a hard look at new muggle technology and start experimenting with it, and adding magic to it, that the misuse of muggle artifacts office has to be created as its own department.

At this period in the 20th century (1930s), the average muggle existence is sufficiently alien to the average wizard's daily life that muggle studies can be its own entire course of study, rather than just an elective. The course goal is no longer how to pass as a muggle for safety.

At this point you have most of the modern muggle studies course. From a backwards, "here is enough to get by" elective class that no one respects or understands, to a formalized educational program which is studied because it has value on its own merit and not just as a means to an end.