Challenge the stupidity. I spent the entire last semester being openly Marxist, wrote papers praising Mao and Stalin and advocating for the inclusion of trans people in sport and am walking away with my first 4.0 ever. Educators main concern these days is not getting sued, so the more radical your position the more cover you have.
I had two comrade professors at community college and uni. At uni I took the revolution and reaction in South/Central America and the Caribbean. Our first paper was on the 54 coup in Guatemala. When she was handing our papers back she thanked me. I can't imagine the sheer amount of shit takes she had to deal with. The other lefty was an intro to sociology class. We had some visitors from USC sit in on a class. He actually did the "are you guys cops? you have to tell me" thing.
Educators main concern these days is not getting sued
Both currently and historically, my experience has been that they're trying to hit some kind of grade curve quota. So they want to hand out 20% As and 50% Bs and 20% Cs and at least a few Fs, just to prove they're being "equitable" with their grading.
If your class is full of lazy stoners or schlubs who don't care about their GPA, its very easy to get an A by putting forward literally any amount of effort. If your class is full of gunners and try-hards, it can be a struggle to get a solid B. That's why picking the "right professor" and the "right major" is so much of the Meta when working through college.
I've seen smart kids flunk out because they took the wrong set of classes. And I've seen dumb kids waltz through with perfect GPAs, because they knew (or had a friend who knew) how to beat the system without trying.
I lived and died on RateMyProfessor. Things to look out for; "Professor talked about his ex wife a lot" - Just skip that course. Don't even go near it.
Interdisciplinary humanities major here, lemme give you guys the run down.
History, polisci, international studies and econ are professional feeder degrees. These will be very hard.
Philosophy, gender studies and ethnic studies have something to prove, they will also be very hard.
Anthro and soc and psych are very comfortable in their position but are also "useless degrees." These will be easy As.
Lower division science classes are hard. Upper division sciences are easy. The exception is environmental sciences which are inexplicably both easy and professional feeder degrees.
If you want communist professors, your best bets are gender/critical/ethnic/cultural studies, geography, and sometimes anthropology depending on the university. American Indian / Caribbean / Oceania / Indigenous studies will be lefty too, but not Marxist because of its European origins.
Polisci, international studies, econ, business, biological anthro, and some psyche departments are right-winger factories.
Area studies is what the CIA funded to replace anthropology and Orientalism after they reckoned with the anti-colonial upheavals of the 60s and 70s, but because it takes the CIA's anything besides communism goes philosophy, they can still be a lot of fun.
Warning on Anthropology; You'll learn in excruciating and painful detail why the world is such a fucking mess, and there's no comfortable lies that make it easier. Also, Anthropology is not "Easy A's". You don't have to do math but you do have to put your brain through a wringer and challenge a lot of how you look at the world. If you're a very good reader and writer you can bullshit your way through to a point, but after the 200 level classes you need to actually pay attention and learn theory.
At the upper levels you'll also need to be able to use spreadsheets and do some data analysis. If you go through it as a degree you'll have to do field work, which means convincing strangers that they can trust you and then spending weeks or months hanging out and learning about their lives.
You'll never make back the cost of your tuition unless you go in to marketing or some similar exploitive profession because no one in power cares about decolonization, indigenous rights, or the lives of poor people. If you go to enough symposiums and talks and discussions you might meet some cool old Marxists who can help you break out of the western colonial mindset. It's a valuable discipline if you're going to try to organize diverse groups of people because the whole core of the discipline is about breaking your preconceptions about the Other and trying to understand them way they understand themselves
Also, Anthropology is not “Easy A’s”. You don’t have to do math but you do have to put your brain through a wringer and challenge a lot of how you look at the world.
I didn't find it any more challenging than just like, being a communist. Its a lot of the same ways of thinking, imo,. It's like organizing but instead of convincing people to come to your event where you yell at a landlord, it's convincing people to talk to you about their shitty ass experiences in the healthcare system.
Challenge the stupidity. I spent the entire last semester being openly Marxist, wrote papers praising Mao and Stalin and advocating for the inclusion of trans people in sport and am walking away with my first 4.0 ever. Educators main concern these days is not getting sued, so the more radical your position the more cover you have.
Either that, or your professors (or marking TAs) are secret comrades.
I had two comrade professors at community college and uni. At uni I took the revolution and reaction in South/Central America and the Caribbean. Our first paper was on the 54 coup in Guatemala. When she was handing our papers back she thanked me. I can't imagine the sheer amount of shit takes she had to deal with. The other lefty was an intro to sociology class. We had some visitors from USC sit in on a class. He actually did the "are you guys cops? you have to tell me" thing.
Both currently and historically, my experience has been that they're trying to hit some kind of grade curve quota. So they want to hand out 20% As and 50% Bs and 20% Cs and at least a few Fs, just to prove they're being "equitable" with their grading.
If your class is full of lazy stoners or schlubs who don't care about their GPA, its very easy to get an A by putting forward literally any amount of effort. If your class is full of gunners and try-hards, it can be a struggle to get a solid B. That's why picking the "right professor" and the "right major" is so much of the Meta when working through college.
I've seen smart kids flunk out because they took the wrong set of classes. And I've seen dumb kids waltz through with perfect GPAs, because they knew (or had a friend who knew) how to beat the system without trying.
Ratemyprofessors.com is definitely a great tool.
I lived and died on RateMyProfessor. Things to look out for; "Professor talked about his ex wife a lot" - Just skip that course. Don't even go near it.
Interdisciplinary humanities major here, lemme give you guys the run down.
History, polisci, international studies and econ are professional feeder degrees. These will be very hard.
Philosophy, gender studies and ethnic studies have something to prove, they will also be very hard.
Anthro and soc and psych are very comfortable in their position but are also "useless degrees." These will be easy As.
Lower division science classes are hard. Upper division sciences are easy. The exception is environmental sciences which are inexplicably both easy and professional feeder degrees.
If you want communist professors, your best bets are gender/critical/ethnic/cultural studies, geography, and sometimes anthropology depending on the university. American Indian / Caribbean / Oceania / Indigenous studies will be lefty too, but not Marxist because of its European origins.
Polisci, international studies, econ, business, biological anthro, and some psyche departments are right-winger factories.
Area studies is what the CIA funded to replace anthropology and Orientalism after they reckoned with the anti-colonial upheavals of the 60s and 70s, but because it takes the CIA's anything besides communism goes philosophy, they can still be a lot of fun.
Warning on Anthropology; You'll learn in excruciating and painful detail why the world is such a fucking mess, and there's no comfortable lies that make it easier. Also, Anthropology is not "Easy A's". You don't have to do math but you do have to put your brain through a wringer and challenge a lot of how you look at the world. If you're a very good reader and writer you can bullshit your way through to a point, but after the 200 level classes you need to actually pay attention and learn theory.
At the upper levels you'll also need to be able to use spreadsheets and do some data analysis. If you go through it as a degree you'll have to do field work, which means convincing strangers that they can trust you and then spending weeks or months hanging out and learning about their lives.
You'll never make back the cost of your tuition unless you go in to marketing or some similar exploitive profession because no one in power cares about decolonization, indigenous rights, or the lives of poor people. If you go to enough symposiums and talks and discussions you might meet some cool old Marxists who can help you break out of the western colonial mindset. It's a valuable discipline if you're going to try to organize diverse groups of people because the whole core of the discipline is about breaking your preconceptions about the Other and trying to understand them way they understand themselves
I didn't find it any more challenging than just like, being a communist. Its a lot of the same ways of thinking, imo,. It's like organizing but instead of convincing people to come to your event where you yell at a landlord, it's convincing people to talk to you about their shitty ass experiences in the healthcare system.
Oh fuck I'm taking a "useless" degree. At least my GPA will be good lmao
No lies detected
Wow this just blew my fucking brain. Good take comrade :sicko-hair: