I've learned some magic words, and they can be found right inside the course catalog for my college. As you may know, I ended up dropping out of my Human Anatomy and Physiology class because it was simply too difficult and time consuming and the material itself held no interest for me. On top of that, I'm only taking science classes to satisfy the general education requirements of my AA degree. I'm not a science major, I'm going to go on and work toward a Bachelor's in business.
So now that my really tough science class is off my schedule, I'm working diligently on my other science class, Earth Sciences. The contrast between the two courses is strikingly dramatic. While at first look it appeared the anatomy class was one of the most difficult I'd ever encountered, the Earth Sciences class seems very, very easy.
What is the difference?
It all has to do with the intent and focus of the course. In reading the course catalog more closely, I encounted the sentence that I now refer to as "the magic words". That sentence appears near the beginning of certain course descriptions, and is basically something like this:
"This is an introductory course designed for students who choose a major other than science".
Now I'm a guy who is usually up for a challenge, and while I feel a little guilty about bailing out of the anatomy class, I now realize that there is no sense killing myself to trudge through a course and potentially hurt my GPA to take on the challenge of a class that really isn't even part of my area of focus or my degree plan.
From now on, I'll choose my classes more wisely and make sure that I'm selecting classes that are more compatible with my goals.