Every student has been in this kind of position. The school year begins, you walk into the class, you go over the syllabus and you think you’ve just walked into the worst class ever. The material doesn’t appeal to you, you feel like you’re going to pass out every time the teacher starts talking and, worst of all, you don’t know why you’re in the class. If you haven’t been in this kind of situation before, you’re going to be. I’ve just now experienced that this week as school has started back. This particular course sounds difficult from reading over the syllabus and immediately following it I had to read through 30+ pages of walls of text. It wasn’t exactly the best experience for the first day of classes. Nevertheless, I know that I have to power through it, and so should you.
The hard and simple truth is that you have to take these classes. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like algebra, biology or English, you have to take the class. That, I feel, is the thing that you need to get over when you’re thinking about this. The class that I’m worried about? It directly ties to my major. Even if I drop it now, I’ll have to take it again at some point in the future. No matter how hard it gets, I. Have. To. Take. It. I cannot stress that enough to myself. The same can be said for you, but not always.
Yes, it’s true, not every class you take is going to help you towards your major. Why do I, as an English and History double major, need to take a biology class? It’s practically the same situation high school students find themselves in whenever they ask their algebra teacher, “Yeah, but how is this going to help me in the future?” Unless you go into mathematics, you probably won’t ever use the quadratic equation again in your life unless you’re helping your future kid out with their math homework. But biology teaches me about bodily functions and other material that I can use in future writings, and algebra, for all of its equations, helps you with problem solving in any kind of field. While you can’t see the value in a class in the present, that doesn’t mean you won’t discover how that class truly helped you in the future.
And that’s my entire point. You have no idea how a class is going to affect your future. You can’t see it now because you’re too busy complaining about why you have to take the class. Get over the question of “Why do I have to take this class?” and just get into the subject. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll find yourself actually liking what the class is about.
