How to Pick an Easy Professor

If you're the average college student, chances are you've spent a lot of time flipping through the course catalog looking for a blow off class. Maybe you're a little worn out from those four literature classes you took last semester, and are now looking for something with a little less reading. Or, maybe you're just lazy, but promised mom and dad you'd get a degree, so you're filling your transcript with History of TV, and Kinesiology credits. Either way, there's not a college student alive who doesn't enjoy an easy A. The only thing is, instead of spending all your time looking for easy classes, you should be spending all that time and energy into looking for easy professors!

Why professors and not classes? Simply put, just because a class sounds easy in its course description, doesn't mean it is. It all depends on how the class is taught. Take these two classes for example:

3306: Shakespeare: The Major Works

Cr. 3. (3-0). Prerequisite: ENGL 1304 or equivalent. One-semester concentration on the major plays, such as The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV,King Lear, and The Tempest.

3324: Photojournalism I
Cr. 3. (2-3). Prerequisite: junior standing or consent of instructor. Techniques of taking and developing pictures for the mass media.

Unless you're just weird (or an English major) you're probably thinking that running around and taking pictures of stuff will be a hell of a lot easier than reading Shakespeare, right? Eh, wrong. I took both these classes.

The lady who taught Photojournalism I expected me to cover twenty major news events for a portfolio. Oh, and she wouldn't take stupid little things like a pet store grand opening, or a kid in my neighborhood who started his own lemonade stand empire. She wanted me to spend all my free time wandering around the city taking pictures of politicians and car accidents, and crap like that. It was horrible. I got a C (and I was lucky to get that).

Now, the guy who taught Shakespeare, on the other hand, was freakin' awesome. Get this - no tests, no essays, no assignments. The only requirement for the course was attendance, and that you say at least one interesting thing about the reading on any given class day. That was it! All I had to do was open up whatever play we were supposed to read, memorize a stupid little quote, and spew out some crap about why I found it "interesting." It was the easiest A I ever made!

So, just how do you find these easy professors? Well, the first step is to ask around. Before you register, talk to your friends and see what their views on some of their former professors are. Chances are, they've taken at least one easy class. And if they can't come up with any easy professors, they can almost always recommend to you which professors to avoid. People tend to remember the crappy teachers.

Now, when you ask, be sure to find out why they liked or disliked that professor. Different students like different learning styles. So, if you're nerdy friend likes Professor So-and-So because she only gave essay tests, and he loved it because he sucks at multiple choice, you might be pretty pissed when your dyslexic ass finds out that you have to write six papers.

So, what if you're a freshmen, or just a loser who doesn't have any friends to ask? Check out http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/. This site rocks. It has over 6,000 schools, 770,000 professors, and some 6,200,000 ratings. You simply find your school via a dropdown menu, and then you can either browse professors by last name, or check them out by department. Professors are rated by Average Easiness, Average Helpfulness, Average Clarity, and even Hotness Total, so you should definitely be able to find the type of professor you're looking for. Also, you can read reviews left by actual students.

In the end, just remember, it's all about how the class is taught, not the subject matter itself. Even History of The Simpsons can be a grueling class if your teacher expects you to write some eighty-page psychoanalysis of Homer. Good luck.