I know it’s hard, but saying goodbye to the fantasies and hello to reality is always best :).

It’s almost the end of the second week of the shopping period, and during this time I think we can all say we’ve become doe-eyed lovers of each one of the nine classes on our schedule. Regardless of how irrelevant I find Introduction to American Toilets (a made-up class that I probably would have fallen in love with tbh), the beauties of 19th-century latrines have absolutely and positively captivated my interests. I go to sleep thinking of the essays to write, the intellectually stimulating discussion section, and the exhilarating daily chapters of reading in all my greatest dreams.

I think about the essays—interesting to research and not at all draining due to the lack of information—and the discussions which, while completely virtual, will never be dry once I meet my closest friends in breakout rooms, and we hang out on the weekends discussing the commode à la Portugal. There are no faults to be found except for “the cruel-hearted registrars with hearts made of coal”—a quote from one of my professors. 

Usually, taking all these courses would be the most glorious thing imaginable: captivating classes that we paid only 80,000 dollars for?! Who would’ve thunk? And there would be no issue, except the whole “I struggled last semester taking 15 credits” situation. But 23 credits? Sign me up! It’ll be a breeze; spending hours in Milstein during syllabus week is just proof of my dedication to my classes.

So if you need to say goodbye to some classes you have shopped but don’t know how to, never fear, Tara is here (it rhymes)! And I got you with five glorious and fail-proof tips that’ll leave you saying “adios, you’re gross.” 

1. Read the CULPA reviews and stop at two years ago. I know your professor was so unbelievably fantabulous in 2011, but I promise that if they were good then, they’re bad now. Profs have genuinely changed more in these past 10 years than the icebergs. 
2. Realize 4000-level philosophy courses will most likely be the perfect curation of pretentious annoyances, and no you will not rise to their level—you’ll just get increasingly aggravated at how someone can say so much while saying so little. 
3. Talk to someone who took the class last semester and when they say it’s worse than pulling teeth, remember your five-day recovery when you got your wisdom teeth pulled, and how you looked like a jailed chipmunk for the entirety of that period. 
4. Shakespeare. That’s it. If you see Shakespeare, just run. Immediately. Drop the class, do it, do it, do it. Nobody cares about Elizabethan times unless you peaked in middle school because you were picked as Romeo in your 8th grade Shakespeare unit. 
5. If none of the aforementioned solutions work, I present you with the ultimate solution to axing those credits: talking to your non-major friends. I swear to God, nothing will humble you quicker than a friend saying taking four STEM classes is the stupidest thing known to man. 

And with that, I bid you all good luck, and remember there’s always next semester when this whole thing will happen again! And don’t forget about the summer semester; who would want anything other than three months of sweaty, smelly, but sultry ancient Greek? 

Don’t forget, dropping a few credits doesn’t make you any less intelligent, it just means you have a life worth more than weekends of Freud!

dropping all your courses like via Flickr