How to Fail History

Professor Hargis's

"Top 10 Ways to

Lower Your Grade in History"

(or maybe even fail!)

#10 APPROACH YOUR ASSIGNMENTS AS A JOB YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE WAY AS QUICKLY AND WITH AS LITTLE EFFORT AS POSSIBLE. After all, you came to college to get by with the minimum of learning. Any curiosity and potential interest in understanding this class or our world is a total waste of time and effort.

#9. REFUSE TO READ ANYTHING THAT WAS NOT WRITTEN IN THE MODERN PROSE STYLE of high school textbooks, newspapers, comic books, and novels. After all, if you learn to enjoy the rich images, poetic rhythms, leisurely asides, and meticulous sentence constructions of previous centuries, then television might start to seem shallow.

#8. TRY TO GET OTHERS TO DO YOUR ASSIGNMENTS. Why should you follow directions from the prof and do all the work (after all, you might learn something), when there are other students, boyfriends or girlfriends, and relatives, who can do all or most of it for you. Heck, even the internet could help. What's the harm in using someone else's ideas and words?

#7. START RUSTLING YOUR PAPERS AND PACKING YOUR BACKPACK FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE END OF THE CLASS. Your professor might have been building up to the most critical point in the whole lecture, so you'll want to be sure to miss it.

#6. IGNORE THE DAILY TOPICS IN THE SYLLABUS, the headings and illustration captions, and all other strategically placed clues as to what is going on.

#5. WAIT UNTIL CALLED UPON TO PARTICIPATE IN CLASS DISCUSSIONS. Try to hide in the back of the room. Better yet, find subtle ways to pressure other students not to "show off" by talking too much in class -- that way you won't learn anything from your colleagues either.

#4. DON'T TAKE NOTES IN CLASS. If you must take notes, only write down what the professor puts on the overhead or blackboard, or what's on the power point slide. And the best way to do that is to write it all down madly so you can tune out what the prof is actually saying to elaborate the point. Your profs have this silly idea that the outlines, overheads, papers, and power points they have provided are only a starting point for your own interactive note-taking. Ignore all such strategies.

#3. SKIP CLASSES (THE MORE THE BETTER). If you must come to class, sleep, look at your text messages, use your cell phone, or talk to your friends the whole time.

#2. Don't Read. You don't learn anything anyway, and it just strains your eyes. If you must read, remember that you'll want to get top dollar for your textbooks when you resell them. The trick here is not to underline, write in the margin, or engage the readings any more than necessary. And, coming to class unprepared is cool.

#1 DECIDE RIGHT NOW THAT ALL THIS OLD STUFF CAN'T POSSIBLY HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH US TODAY!