SAMUEL RAFUSE

Around halfway through each semester, every student realizes that there’s at least one class that just doesn’t matter to them anymore. Luckily, there is a proper way to give up on a class without giving up on a credit.

One of the jokes on the NBC sitcom Community is about character Jeff Winger’s refusal to learn anything or to take college seriously. Thus is born the search for the ultimate blow off class — the easy course that requires absolutely no effort while offering all the benefits of a full credit. Despite our best intentions at registration, there’s usually one class that we just let fall to the wayside and give up on.

Sure, that particular class may not start out as a blow off attempt, but it ends up as one. After the romance of a fresh term has given way to exam headaches and due date extension bargaining, we realize we’re just too busy to be giving 110 per cent in every class. If you’re taking five classes and you’re keeping track of the math, that adds up to a little more than all the energy you’ve got.

The best thing you can do is keep going to class. Maybe you’ll absorb something unintentionally. Besides, you’ll just be wasting your money if you stay home anyway. You say you’ll use that time to study but we all know you’ll be napping, so don’t kid yourself and get your butt into that seat.

Now that you’re in class, it’s time to make good use of Google. Google knows everything and if you can’t be bothered to learn from class, at least you can get on the Internet to get a passing grade. Trust me, somebody out there has made a video tutorial on your topic. With minimal effort comes minimal academic achievement, but in today’s world, spending a little time on a search engine is a lot more beneficial than it appears to be.

How about expanding your horizons? It’s tempting to slack off on the easiest classes but why not sleep through the harder ones instead? Generally getting higher grades requires compounded effort, meaning it’s easier to get a 70 instead of a 60 than it is to get an 80 instead of a 70 and so on.

This can also work in your favour. By spreading your efforts over a number of classes, you can distribute your work among easy and difficult classes so that you don’t have to focus all your attention on the one class that’s bringing you down — plus you can still maintain a pretty decent average.

If all else fails, you can genuinely seek out a blow off class. Of course, this requires research to be done properly. After all, you don’t want to end up with a class that actually teaches you something you didn’t think you were going to be learning.

Photography classes, for example, are about a lot more than taking black-and-white photographs of buildings and calling it a commentary on capitalism. Also don’t forget to keep track of the number of electives you eat up.

Finally, just blow it off. There’s nothing you can do at this point and it’s too late to get your money back, so just take some time to be irresponsible. Chances are no one will really notice since you’re just a face in a crowd most of the time. The surprising thing is that after a few days, you might find yourself longing for class. Maybe you’ll redouble your efforts.

Learning is complicated and it takes a lot of mental effort. Sometimes you just need to take a step back before the material really soaks in. That moment of total frustration when nothing makes sense and you don’t know who you are is the moment before you learn something new. Just do what you need to do to ride it out. Before you know it, it’ll be over — I promise.

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Image: Christine Czajkowski