It is the beginning of the semester. You’ve finished reading the course syllabus, and you are horrified: you have to read five books for this course, there are four exams, there are two group projects, a semester paper and, oh my gosh, you have to speak in front of the class at least once! To make matters worse, your professor is a heathen!

Yes, sometimes it can be disheartening. I urge you to tough it out. Don’t drop the course so early. Although the fear of not obtaining the desired grade may be high, the rewards for persevering are long-lasting. Successfully managing a difficult college course will better prepare you, not only for the rest of your college experience, but for your professional life as well.

You will actually learn from taking a difficult course.  “Learning” in a difficult course feels very different from “learning” in an easy one. While it is common, and successful, in some classes to rely on rote memorization to pass the class, this may not be the case for a difficult course. You might feel like you are learning when you are blazing through your flashcards, but trust me, the world doesn’t work like that. Without the connections and substantive meaning those factoids will disappear after the exam quicker than you memorized them.

The reason this is not the case for a difficult course is that you must collect and connect information. In these courses you are presented with the opportunity to make an argument on your own; you are instructed to gather and present findings. In this process, true learning occurs. True learning is a much deeper learning.

If the academic benefits do not appeal to you, if you are more pragmatic, you should consider staying in the course, because it will help you to learn your limits for stress and work. Entering the private sector means often working in a stressful environment. Having a busy semester with one or two difficult courses can teach you what that is like before it really counts. Let’s be honest, if you don’t do so hot in Humanities 1 because the Bible was a hard read, worst-case scenario you can retake the class. In the “real world” the consequences aren’t so dismissible. You may not get fired, but perhaps you lose respect for not keeping up.

In the same line of thought, perhaps more importantly, managing a difficult course will help you to better manage the most important resource of all: your time. Don’t forget, we all die some day. Our time is a precious thing and we should be wise to treat it properly. Understanding how to prepare a weekly calendar and to plan course responsibilities and reading in advance is an invaluable skill. Mastering this is essential to your college experience.

Now, you might say, “Oh, but I don’t want to take this. The professor rating website says that getting an ‘A’ is too difficult. I’m paying for this degree, and I don’t want a bad GPA.” If that is your stance, then I would urge you to consider who those people are. Did they try? What does their work ethic consist in? Do you want your “success” to be made from passing easy classes? If you come out of college without taking a difficult course then you have truly missed out. Even if your GPA benefitted, you have had a lesser experience.

Suppose you wanted to drop for other reasons. Maybe it is the case that your professor has said some things to offend you and maybe they are actually talking about things that you aren’t comfortable with. There are several reasons why you should not drop the course in this situation.

First, you are in college. Coming into contact with foreign ideas is what college is all about. Don’t misread me; I am not saying you have to give anything up. However, you should be open to sampling.

Second, this is a chance to refine your beliefs. What is the use of believing in something if you cannot defend it? That is, you should hear what these people have to say because it will give you an opportunity to test their arguments and perspectives against your own beliefs and convictions — you should know how to argue on behalf of yourself.

Third, perhaps it is the case that you will be open to changing your mind. There is no shame in changing what you believe, especially so young. You are bound to do it more in the future.

If you stick by this, I assure you the reward will be well worth the effort.