The Short Presentation
This is usually something a professor will make you do earlier in the semester to get some easy points, and don’t get me wrong: I love easy points. But the fact that all that needs to be done is make a four slide PowerPoint presentation and stand at the front of the class reading off the screen really pisses me off. It’s not hard. I don’t have any issues with public speaking. I just think it’s a gigantic fucking waste of time. Thanks for the three points we get for doing it, but for fuck’s sake it’s completely unnecessary.
The Asynchronous Class
Students don’t want to go to class, and what a lot of people don’t realize is that neither do professors. It’s work for them just as much as it is for us to get up in the morning and suffer through an hour of class time. Then, whenever professors want a break from actually having to teach, they give us “asynchronous classes” which are awesome because you don’t have to get up and go to class. Everyone loves that aspect. But a message to professors: if you’re going to be too lazy to hold a class, it’s pretty… searching for a politically correct word… lame that you’re making us watch a fifteen-minute YouTube video and answer three questions. I’d almost rather just go to class and sit there completely silent to get my attendance points.
Peer Review
I’m an English major, so I have to do this on a pretty frequent basis. For the rest of you, I’m sure in whatever writing classes you were required to take, this was a part of it. I have a very special kind of hatred for peer review. First of all, there isn’t a single person in any class that actually gives a flying fuck about what anyone else is writing. Not one. That means that we all end up suffering through writing that is interesting to no one except for the person that wrote it. And even when there is a good essay, as refreshing as it may be to read, it still is going to be about stuff you don’t care about. Then there’s the fact that I’m taking the class to get feedback from a professor, not someone who is sitting in the same class I am at the exact same level. In what world am I supposed to take comments from my classmates seriously when they know just as much as I do? It’s pointless and probably one of the biggest wastes of time in modern day academia.
My advice for all three of these garbage activities is that you do them all half-assed. You’ll get the credit either way, so why put yourself through the ordeal of putting in effort to something that’s meaningless?
