As a Junior, I feel a heightened sense of clarity and can actually spend time reminiscing on the past. I like to think that I have been a decent college student so far yet I can't help but feel like I made a mistake freshman year. Looking back, I remember a majority of my coursework being fairly easy. I could do well on a test without studying for days on end. However, I came to the realization that some of the classes I claimed were "dead easy" I had lower grades than my current upper division courses.
How could this be? Did I randomly get smarter? Did the classes get easier? At first I was shocked by this phenomena but then remembered how bad my first year schedule was, and how It didn't help getting into the habit of missing morning classes and not consequently dropping them. The following narrative describes the sentiments of a naive economics student who learned about add/drop the hard way. And yes, it is loosely based on my own embarrassing struggles as a freshman.
1. It's the third day of class and I notice that there's not too much to be nervous about. It's syllabus week and I have barely done any work. There is that one class though with the seemingly passive aggressive instructor that seems potentially rough. A few conversations under your belt and you find out that your professor is really strict and that the the other sections of Writing 101 are so much easier.
2. Today is Thursday and you're first class is at 9 am , you're not a morning person but you're excited. You get there just in time and notice two friends sitting in the auditorium, on top of that this professor seems super chill. Even better the teacher says "attendance is important but not mandatory" . Little did you know that this is a trap. First of all it's early so you were bound to miss a few classes anyway, but now your motivation is even less because attendance is lax.
3. Now it's Saturday and even as a freshman it's hard to imagine a worse schedule than a weekend morning math class. Atleast my College Algebra professor was very understanding and didn't even mind the 5 lacrosse kids sleeping in the back row. Which would have included me if not for my grande caramel frappuccino. At this point I don't know why I just didn't march into registrar's office ; change out of my hard section of First Year Writing into an easy one, drop my thursday class at 9am and switch to an afternoon time. My advice to you is absolutely take a weekday math class instead of a 10am on Saturday!
However I didn't take any action because I convinced myself that it was "doable". About a month passed when I realized I had made a horrible mistake.
Freshman, remember that your first few classes should be a breeze but don't let a bad schedule be the difference between an A and a B. Consider add/drop the easiest way to get out of a bad relationship in your academic schedule.
