How to Survive: Boring classes

As far as college goes, boring classes are the bane of a student’s existence. When the last thing you want to do is go to classes, a boring course seems like the biggest waste of time ever.

There are usually three reasons why a certain class is unentertaining. The first reason is that you probably have no use for or interest in the course’s subject matter. The other two reasons are that the professor or the books are dull. Sometimes, the class is all three rolled into one and you find yourself stuck because it’s past the add/drop deadline.

Chances are if you’re in a class you don’t like, it’s probably a general education requirement. If so, try to keep in mind that said class is probably required for the sole purpose of making you a Renaissance student. But being a well-rounded student probably does nothing for you.

One way to get your mind away from a course you don’t care about is to simply distract yourself enough to not be bored, but not be distracted enough to miss important information. However, this is a finely-tuned art and a step that should only be taken with the utmost care; it’s not hard to get too off-track and miss what you need to do the homework.

If you do try this method, doodling in the margins, among other things, allows for your notebook to be open and ready for more important tasks. There’s always the chance that you’re not the doodling type, so there’s nothing more distracting than planning out how you’ll go about your homework later and chores you need to do. Not only will you be less bored planning your time, but you’ll know exactly what you need to do so that your procrastination isn’t as bad later.

Dealing with professors is a different matter. Most of the time you can go to polyratings.com and take a peek at what your professor might be like, but sometimes you just have no choice. Whether they are the only professor teaching a certain class or that you can’t take the class any other time, you’re stuck with them.

You could sleep in class, which is ever so tempting when you haven’t gotten enough sleep to begin with, but that always leaves a bad impression. If you’re going to cat-nap, then do it in a class that’s big enough to hide in. Don’t sleep in your smallest class where you’re sitting around business meeting style. You’ll be getting dirty looks from the professor for the rest of the quarter. The same thing goes for the first few rows in the lecture halls. Professors notice when someone in the front row is nodding off and it’s insulting to them.

Books tend to be the worst part of a boring class since students don’t have any say in which books they have to read for a course. A professor could choose a book just because they wrote one page in it with little consideration on whether their students will understand it or not. The best part is you paid over $100 for the evil thing.

So now you’re sitting in front of a bazillion mind-numbing pages eating away at your brain and those pages have to be read by morning. There’s no way you can get around the reading because you’ll need it for the tests, but you can’t help but stare at the pages in awe of their power to suck away any shred of concentration you had left.

There are no CliffsNotes for textbooks, so set reading goals for yourself instead. Turn off the TV and away from the computer and tell yourself that you’ll get 10 pages read in the next half-hour. Once you’ve met your goal, get up and do something else to let your mind defrost. You can also rotate various assignments by reading some of the boring stuff first and then do something more interesting. It becomes less daunting once you break it up.

Avoiding a boring class isn’t easy by any means. When you get stuck with one, all you can really do is learn how cope with the fact that college isn’t all action and adventure. Just get on with the quarter.