Studying is for suckers

“Study hard and you will get good grades.” It sounds reasonable; right? Wrong. I wish that you all would just grow up a little and start doing things my way... Or should I say, “the right way.”

Let me tell you about my little experiment with studying hard. You see, I have this class ambiguously named CS 144. The “CS” stands for “computer science.” It's an exciting name; I know. I imagine that your heart, like mine, does a little flutter every time you hear it. Say it out loud with me: see-es-one-forty-four. Oooo *shiver*... Goose-bumps.

I have this most joyous of classes at 7:45 AM. I wouldn't have it any other way. Actually, let me start a little earlier in the day. I get up at the crack of 6: "however many times I've hit the snooze button"-o-clock, and I jump in the shower. After a scalding hot shower (I like the water to be to the point where it nearly raises blisters. It's sort of like the game of chicken; only one of the participants is an unflinching chemical compound that goes by the handle “dihydrogen monoxide”), so anyway; after my shower, I usually make my way to the computer to check the ol' bloggosphere, where I gaze longingly at the picture of my beard and give invisible hi-fives to those who have left favorable comments concerning my beloved bristles, and shake a well aimed fist in the direction of those who don't view “Rob-beard” (my beard's name... as of right now) too favorably... Mom.

After some breakfast and a smooch or two, I start the long walk up to the Austin building where my CS 144 class is held. Once I arrive, I greet my buddy Chade, who generally graces me with words of encouragement that often terminate in the phrase, “effing program”, or something that isn't quite so unoffensive. I take my seat, get out my notebook and prepare myself to learn. This is the state in which my teacher, Brother Ercanbrack, finds me every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning.

So there I am in my seat; bright eyed, notebook out, words of encouragement ringing in my ears when my computer programming class begins. Brother Ercanbrack has a unique style of teaching. After he is done explaining a principle, he gets up and has the class collectively write a computer program on the white board while he acts as scribe. It usually goes something like this:

Brother Ercanbrack: “Ok guys! You're going to help me write a program that calculates how many grains of sand there are on all the world's beaches, and then determines how far all of the grains of sand would reach if placed end to end in feet, meters, pounds, kilojoules, dollars, cotton candy and babies. Where do we start?”

Class: *silence*

Brother Ercanbrack: “Come on guys. Wake up!”

Dude in the front row with a laptop: “Wouldn't you include 'iomanip' and write a function that takes the second derivative of the piece-wise function: the square root of 4x squared minus 2x all divided by 8 minus 5x squared for -5.1 is greater than x and x is less than 9/2 and 10x to the fourth does not equal 3?"

Brother Ercanbrack: *silence*

Dude in the front row with a laptop: *typing*

Brother Ercanbrack: “Ok. Let's see what happens when we do what he said.” *writes 'include# iomanip' on the board* “Alright class. What else do we need?”

Class: *silence*

Brother Ercanbrack: “What do we need to find out first?... We need to know how many grains of sand are on the worlds beaches; right?... Don't we need to know how many grains of sand there are before we can do the calculations?”

Chade: *whispering* “What the ef is he talking about? Is it alright if I swear? Can I swear?”

Me: “Would it make any difference if I told you 'no'?”

Chade: “Hell no!”

Me: “Then by all means, be my guest.”

Chade: *expletive deleted*

Class usually passes in this manner; with the students slipping in and out of comas, until 8:45, when we are released back into the wild from whence we came. Before we are let go, Brother Ercanbrack usually takes time to let us know when our next program is due, or to remind us of the next test looming ahead.

This brings us back to the beginning; “Study hard and you'll get good grades.” It's a phrase often quoted... often quoted by those who have never taken Brother Ercanbrack's CS 144 class.

Here is how my brief history with “studying to get good grades” has gone as it relates to CS 144: Our first test was pretty basic. I had understood everything that was covered in the lectures and I had taken good notes, so I felt good when I went in to take the test. As I was filling in the bubble sheet, I felt confident in my knowledge of the subject and I was sure that I was going to get a good grade. As I exited the testing center, I looked at my grade on the screen just outside the door. “72%” was displayed next to my student ID number. “Wow... Not as good as I thought, but not too bad either. I can live with it, having not studied too hard.”

Skipping to the next test, I thought, “Hey, if I can get a 72% with minimal study, think of what I can do if I actually crack a book before I take the next test!” So that's what I did. Before I took the next test, I opened my book and actually read the chapters that would be covered. This time, as I filled in the bubble sheet, I felt really good. I recognized things that I had read about just a little while before and I understood what most of the questions were asking. “I'm going to get at least an 80% on this one”, I thought to myself. I finished the test up, walked out the door and looked at the screen. “65%”, was displayed next to my student ID this time.

Right now you are probably thinking to yourself, “Just because you got a bad grade on a test after studying, it doesn't mean that you should stop studying for tests.” You would be right if you excluded my CS 144 tests from your little equation, because the story doesn't end there. You see, today I went in to take yet another test. I determined that I would not open the book before I took this one because it only served to harm my grade last time... So that's what I did. I just walked in today relying wholly upon the knowledge that I had gained from class and from the assignments that corresponded to the chapters covered on the test. I got a 70%. Not great, but not too bad either.

So what's the moral to this story? I believe it goes something like this: Kids, don't let them fool you. Studying can only make you dumber. I know. It happened to me, and it will happen to you too. Instead, eat lots of junk food and play video games until your body atrophies into a gelatinous substance like that of veil. It's the only way to be happy in this life.

Martell