As the week continues, most classes are like motors running at full force and assignments beginning to kick in, too. This is the time when students will decide if the classes and sections they have enrolled in are suitable for them.
If you are on Facebook or Twitter, you will not be surprised to see wall posts, tweets, and comments about students' reactions to their new courses and professors. Ratemyprofessor.com is now facing another sudden - yet expected - enormous traffic that causes slow loadings to its users.
In the world of social networking via the Internet, students can comment and receive feedback on their level of satisfaction over the classes they have been attending for the past one week. In fact, I believe students are exposed to even more opinions than ever about their experiences.
Some students decide to stay with their respective registered classes while many (from my observation) decide to drop a class or switch to another section.
Since I live with an international community at Lawrence Hall, I had the opportunity to gather some insights about the factors that drive a student's decision to drop or switch a class. A decent number of students, about 20% of those I have spoken to, know their strengths and weaknesses and hence decide for themselves that a class may not be appropriate for them.
Yet sadly, more than half of the students whom I have observed move to another section because they did not like their professors. For even worse, they simply drop that class. There is a dispute between getting through a class with a high GPA and surviving a tough class with high GPA. Many would prefer the former.
It is not wrong to determine for yourself if all you want for the semester is a good GPA. But I believe accepting that challenge set by a class can teach us a lesson of perseverance and self-motivated improvement.
When you decide to drop a class, you are surrendering into an act we call quitting. And we say quitters are no winners. There may be a thousand reasons for you to not continue with a professor, with the first 999 stating that the professor is too tough for you. Despite, have you ever felt that glimmer of a thought that move through you: "May be I can try?"
We will never overcome our weaknesses if we choose a detour every time a challenge comes up; we will never learn the new techniques if we choose to "chicken out;" and we will never succeed, until we try.
Our days may seem all uphill when things do not turn out the ways we have expected them to be. Be that as it may, you may not realize that an uphill road brings you to greater heights. And with greater heights come greater potential. You shall soon realize that a good challenge is your stepping stone to the throne of success.
This may sound old fashioned, but college is really the time to push yourself through the "great wall." You can test your strength by trying to bring that wall down. You have to admit that it is not easy a task, though. But that is the point!
Now, forget about the comments about your classes or professors that your friends have posted on your Facebook wall and let's keep moving forward.
Remember: Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
