In the middle of a stressful term, work hard to smoke those weed-out classes

Your failures are never final — unless, of course, you failed your final.

It was this mentality that flooded the classes of my freshman year. From the first day of school, a winner-take-all approach was running rampant with students who boasted their heavy course loads as much as their perfect GPAs.

What determined your level of sanity in those first few semesters of college was the number of weed-out classes you chose to take in one term. Every college major has a few: the courses that are purposely made difficult to change the minds of hesitant students. Your enrollment in a weed-out class earned you respect — but also 30 hours a week of incessant studying, hair-pulling and stress-eating.

A weed-out class is the truest form of academic Darwinism: The weak get dropped while the strong survive. Students are placed in high-pressure situations and exposed to condensed curricula while the phrase “Keep up, or you’ll fail” rattles their minds. Students who enter college with the goal of becoming the world’s first space-traveling brain surgeon end up with much broader, more tempered career aspirations once their first batch of exam grades comes out. But with a tree’s worth of study guides weighing down your backpack, there’s hardly room for enjoyment, let alone a meaningful educational experience.

As students struggle to stay afloat in their weed-out courses, fundamental joys of learning are thrown out the window. Those who are just entering the doorway of their respective majors very quickly have the same door slammed in their face. This rude introduction to college stifles the scholastic experience from the get-go, discouraging students from exploring their options and pursuing their interests further.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 80 percent of university students in the U.S. change their major at least once. Many students enter college without a fixed life plan — and rightly so. But to subject first-year students to classes meant to harm, rather than inspire, is fundamentally flawed. The pressure of choosing the right path is met with the expectation to perform. Students become martyrs to mathematics and captives to chemistry.

Perhaps astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson put it best: “When Students cheat on exams it’s because our School System values grades more than Students value learning.” The very nature of a weed-out course limits the student’s right to exploration, emphasizing the importance of a passing grade rather than the learning itself.

Until students receive an easier means for exploring their academic interests, these weed-out courses will remain in place as the only building blocks for majors. The only option we are left with as students is to work — and work hard. While the studying may be grueling, it will pave the way for future successes.

My advice to you, dear reader, is to use the resources you have at your disposal to ensure your success in the face of failure. Professors sit in their offices waiting for students to come in for help. Take advantage of office hours, tutoring centers and libraries. The only way to win the war on weed-out classes is to put in the work and be curious. Ask questions when nobody else will.

The nature of the weed-out course is the perfect necessary evil, a required roadblock that will ultimately push you to the next level. When all’s said and done, you have to dig through the weeds to get to the garden.

Max Chesnes is a UF journalism sophomore. His column appears on Fridays.