Class Schedule Advice: Dropping a Course - College Info Geek

Key Takeaways

in our wide world there exists a variety of objects that generally should not be dropped bowling balls containers of pure sodium that kind of thing however by contrast there are also several things that should be dropped such as fire ants in fact that's probably the most important thing you should drop also the subject when your uncle Gary brings up politics at Thanksgiving dinner and also classes in last week's video we looked at some research which showed that academic overload is the most common cause for long-term student stress and burnout and that's why in this one I want argue that it's okay to drop classes when you need to now many students view dropping a class as tan amount to actually failing that class flat out and I understand their reasoning we have ideals that tell us to stick with our commitments to follow through those that persevere through adversity will succeed while those who don't are doomed to a life of regret and a distinct lack of sports car purchases but let's dispense with the inspiring platitudes here yes perseverance is a virtue worth cultivating and yes in general you should approach each of the things you commit to with the intention of seeing them through but there's an element of tactical decision- making to be injected here especially with respect to your class schedule and the reason for that is that many ambitious students tend to overcommit when they're signing up for classes I've been in the same exact position that you probably found yourself in it's time to sign up for classes and you're thinking about the new semester and in addition to that you're thinking about new semesters in general which brings about associations of new beginnings and full stocks of willpower as a result you tend to overcommit when you're signing up so say you've Fallen victim to this line of thinking and now you realize that the workload you've signed yourself up up for is too much what's the solution well simple drop a class if you're diligent about gauging your classes early on it's likely that dropping a class will have no negative effect on you my university for example let people drop unlimited classes with no marks on their transcripts up to 5 days after the semester started even after that you could drop a limited amount of courses up to halfway through the semester though if you're going to do this you should probably know the exact limit that your university has I dropped courses several times as a student for a variety of reasons a couple of elective classes I took ended up having way higher workloads than I anticipated so I dropped those for another class I eventually realized I was only part of the program that required it because I wanted to pad my resume out I didn't actually really care about the program and it wasn't going to help me achieve my goals so I eventually just dropped the class actually dropped out of the program and used the time it freed up to do things I actually cared about there are other valid reasons for dropping classes as well such as a professor whose teaching Style just doesn't work for you you can mitigate some of these risks before the semester starts by using things like rate my professors and reading the syi to get a feel for the workload but you won't know for sure how a class goes until you're sitting in it so here is express permission drop classes when you need to find out what your University's drop policy is and then use it to your advantage to create a schedule that you control rather than one that takes over your life this gives you time to fill your schedule with other useful Pursuits like part-time jobs extracurriculars events and much needed relaxation time in the case of a bad Professor it also gives you the chance to look for a different section of the same class that might have a better Professor now one caveat here though when you drop a class make sure you open open your graduation plan and update the change if you don't have a graduation plan that lays out the courses you plan to take up until graduation I highly recommend creating one if you want you can get a copy of the spreadsheet that I used for my own graduation plan and I've included it as a free download along with my free book that you can get by clicking on the card or the link in the description now I realized that this might not be a viable strategy for every single student out there maybe you're in a program or a college that requires you to take a strict set of classes every single semester and you can't drop any of them or maybe you need to take college at an accelerated Pace in order to be able to afford it likewise it's a strategy that might not solve all of your time management problems especially if you're a student who has to spend a lot of hours at a part-time job in addition to your studies and classes still it's something that deserves consideration and I think the biggest takeaway here is that dropping a class should not be seen as a failure it should be seen as a tactical decision now I'm not the only person who will Advocate this strategy my friend Cal Newport who's a computer science professor and the author of several books included this advice near the start of his book how to win at College which I actually used as a high school student in preparation from my own college experience as he interviewed top students from all around the country for his book he realized that one of the main strategies they used to stay on top of their classes was creating a schedule that they felt in control of careful course selection is one of the best tools for retaining that control and dropping classes is a part of that course selection process that you should be taking advantage of hey guys thanks so much for watching my video on why you should drop classes if you want to get new videos every single week on being a more effective student you can click that big red subscribe button right there you can also get a free copy of my book on earning better grades by clicking the book's picture and that also comes with a copy of my graduation planning spreadsheet like I mentioned earlier so if you want to get that click the picture and I will send you both if you want to see the companion blog post for this episode or read Cal's thoughts on this exact same topic then you click the orange logo to head her to my website if you missed last week's video we talked about how to avoid burnout as a student or deal with it if you're already feeling it and also if you'd like to connect with me ask questions or give feedback you can follow me on Twitter @tomfrankly or leave a comment below thanks for watching he