Universities — and I say that because I suspect it to be the case, not because I know from experience (since I only attended one) — have a drop/add period at the beginning of the semester. In it, students can determine whether or not they still want to take the class for which they signed up. It’s an important time for you to decide if you want to remain in the class or play it out for several months.
In some cases, the decision is easy. If you sign up for an elective and it turns out right away that you hate it, whether because the class is nothing like you thought it would be or it’s too much work, then you can drop it, replace it with something else and be done with it.
In other situations, it’s not. If you hate a required class, then your options are very limited. Perhaps you can find a different professor at a different time, but that scenario does not manifest itself often.
When I went to Boston College, I dropped two courses. The first was a communications class; I was a communications major, but the class was an elective. I had taken this professor before but in the span of a year, he had apparently become more fond of putting students “on the spot” and I was not a fan of it. The second class was in sociology; it was about sports, and I might have gotten to know half the football team if I took it, but I actually dropped this class before the semester began. I received the course syllabus by e-mail a few days before and I had several major problems with the class: (1) the workload was intense, including a final exam AND a term paper which were very closely scheduled, (2) students were not allowed to go to the bathroom unless their life was in grave danger, and (3) students could not wear a hat or any headgear, and for someone like me who has trouble controlling his hair, that’s a big issue.
Had those classes been requirements, then I would have gutted it out and dealt with it, but because they were electives, I had no problem at all eliminating them. Since there were better options available both times, the situation was easily resolved.
If you hate a required class and want to dump it, you are probably only prolonging the inevitable, unless you’re banking on that professor being gone in future semesters (which is far from a certainty). You’re probably not going to love every class over the course of four years, anyway, so if you have to take it, then you have to take it.
If you do not, however, then before you drop the class, check your options and make sure that you have other classes available at a reasonable time and, just as importantly, that it’s something you might like. If your school has them available, be sure to check professor ratings before signing up.
