This week I made an extremely last minute decision, but I just had to do it.
On Monday I decided to drop a class. If this week’s installment helps any of my fellow Bobcats recognize the top three reasons that you should drop that 3000 level statistics class, then I have succeeded.
The first red flag for me is any class that mandates your attendance. I don’t care how much you THINK you’re going to every class, you simply won’t. By week four, you’ll willingly lose that 2 percent off your final grade rather than give up your midday at-home whiskey hour during The Price is Right every Tuesday and Thursday.
If you already missed anything of significance (read: any assignment worth more than 10 percent of your final grade), my best advice is to hop on MyOhio and discard that course like my roommate loves to do with his Big Mamma’s. And for those of you who don’t know, when my roommate is drunk he spikes burritos like he’s Peyton Manning running the two-minute drill.
Anyway, taking a hit that large this early in the semester is definitely a sign for worry. It’s best to chalk it up as an L for the home team and try again next semester…and maybe cut out so many Wednesday night outings at Lucky’s next time around.
Another huge red flag that you need to cut your losses and toss a course are the other students in the class. This should only be applied in cases of the unbearable. Perhaps the unbearable can be found in the two or three teacher’s pets in the class who always ask about extra-credit opportunities and seem to roll out the red carpet for the prof. Or “unbearable” could apply to that one kid who always asks painfully obvious questions at the very end of the allotted time (I’m looking at you, kid who asks when stuff is due…read the syllabus!)
I love to work with people, as I see myself as quite the social butterfly, but when I find myself enrolled in a course that relies HEAVILY (35 percent or more of my grade type of heavy) on group work, I typically concede and find a different professor. Group projects offer no middle ground. Route one involves you being a group of slackers who are all trying to avoid the project like it’s the plague, but yet they still want their name on the final PowerPoint. Route two is when you end up with one or two know-it-all, this-was-my-safety-school-I’m-transferring-to-a-better-one-soon types who are going to schedule useless, yet still mandatory, meetings all the time. Drop the class and laugh at the thought of those other fools squabbling over project details late one night at Alden while you better your online franchise in Madden 25.
My personality really detests when I give up on something. However, when one or more of the aforementioned applies to any of your classes, pull a Snoop Dogg/Lion and “Drop it Like it’s Hot.”
Phil Morehead is a senior studying health services administration and a columnist for The Post. Is dropping classes a good or bad idea? Email him at pm189309@ohiou.edu
