I went to a Freshman general chemistry class as a Senior English major

This month I did the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life… I attended a freshmen general chemistry class. As a senior. Who is an English major. Why? Honestly, I’m not sure.

But I knew it would make a funny story for every person who’s ever been in the boat of having to take a science class when you are absolutely, not remotely a science person (you can thank gen ed course requirements for that).

So I decided to brave the storm and bring along my trusty already-accepted-into-medical-school friend, Alyssa Cruse, who is Senior double major in neuroscience and music (and who would be able to explain any and all science-y questions I may have that the average sixteen year old would also have).

Here are the most basic of observations and ridiculous questions I puzzled my way through (with educated help, thank god)…

The face I make when I think about what I put myself through voluntarily…

As we entered the lecture hall, a room way bigger and with many more seats than I’m used to (most of my liberal arts classes are around twenty students), the first thing that comes out of the professor’s mouth is,

“There will be no class this Friday” and the room erupts into cheers.

For which, being perfectly honest, I cannot fault one single person.

When I go on to remark to Alyssa how surprised I am to see about 70 percent of the classroom there, since I know they don’t take attendance, she tells me it is surprising, but it’s probably because there is an exam coming up.

For real though what even is this place?

Apparently for most science lecture hall courses, attendance is taken or counted so most people never show up, but when it’s time to literally cram four whole weeks of learning into just a few days to pass – well, then you get your ass to class.

In the middle of class, I commented to Alyssa on how absolutely terrible the professor was. That he only read off of powerpoint slides, made eye contact with the crowd every twenty-two minutes, and didn’t seem to notice the abject horror and confusion mulling around the room. Where’s the rousing discussion on truth, on systems of oppression, or the lessons to be learned from thematic motifs?

Obviously I’m in the wrong place if I’m looking for those things, but Alyssa (being the smart pre-med girl she is) decided to pull him up on Rate My Professor, and guess what? He sucks. There is not one nice comment about him or his teaching style, and it seemed like, if past experience proves right, everyone in this class is in for a rough end of semester grade. In this case, you can blame your professor for your bad grade, because they’re “correlated.”

If you look closely you can see a professor avoiding complete eye contact with another human soul in the room.

As I l sit with Alyssa and listen on to the drone of a really, really boring professor, a horrible thought comes to mind, “Where do the lefties sit?!” All the desks I can see, a literal sea of desks, are all for righties. The answer, as pointed out by Alyssa, is that they have seats for all lefties on the edge of rows, but honestly, not in many other places so it’s like The Hunger Games of gen chem.

The particular seat I’m in creaks every time I internally spasm from the sheer awfulness of this class, and the air conditioning is so non-existent I have made friends with beads of sweat rolling down my eyebrows – they are more entertaining than whatever is going on here. Everyone else knows this too, because of the thirty-six laptops I count across the room, I spot only three people looking at the powerpoint; the vast majority of people are on Facebook, shopping, or wasting their time pulling up iMessage on their computer when they could just do it on their phone because the professor wouldn’t notice anyway.

The beautiful and kind Alyssa who was a literal queen for being my sounding board during all of this.

In the last few minutes of this class, which has only apparently taken fifty minutes total but feels like it sold my soul to devil, he traveled all the way from Hell to Georgia with it, and then gave it back to me after he no longer had a need for it, I realize that everyone else feels the exact same way. At around 11:47 am, when the class ends at 11:50am, the air starts to buzz with a restlessness – people close laptops, pack up backpacks, start to talk loudly to their neighbors, and the professor does not remotely notice since he only stares directly at the slides.

In all honesty, I know that there are perks to being a science-major-if-you-like-that-type-of-thing person. You don’t need to go to every class because part of your grade comes from attendance, you don’t necessarily have smaller homework and assignments due all the time (as compared to three or four major exams), and you might actually, incredulously be interested in the material or understanding how the physical world works.

But if that general chemistry class taught me one thing, it’s that you have never seen anything in your life move as quickly as a student exiting when time’s up.

Me leaving that class like ~