The Boston Bachelor

BY THEBOSTONBACHELOR.COM / May 7, 2008

My freshman year of undergrad was a disaster.

I failed more courses than I passed, was placed on Academic warning, and ended up with a 2.0 cumulative GPA. During the next 3 years, I got my shit together, overloaded on coursework (a total of 55 credit hours my last 3 semesters), and managed to graduate on-time, even garnering cum laude. So what was the difference? Was it long, grueling hours of studying in the library. Not quite.

The reality is, you can easily improve your grades if you know how our undergraduate educational system works. Here are 8 secret tips to getting good grades that the academic world doesn’t want you to know.

8. If you’re a minority, and the professor is the same ethnicity as you are, use it to your advantage.

If you’re a minority guy, and your professor is a minority guy of the same ethnic background, then you’re in luck. All political correctness aside, you may get the benefit of the call, just like in a home playoff game. I’ve been able to successfully play the You-Asian-I-Asian card with some professors before. Just make sure he believes that you’re trying your hardest to succeed in his course.

Why does it work? I think it’s because you might remind the professor of himself, back when he was your age, and had to deal with much more bullshit, discrimination, and prejudice during his college years.

For some reason this tends to work less with female professors of the same ethnic background. Go figure.

A final warning, however. Sometimes, sharing the same race as your professor, especially if he endured a rags-to-riches struggle, can be double-edged sword. As my friend Ash, who was struggling in one of his Indian-taught accounting courses, once said, “Because I’m Indian, I’m either going to get a B, or I’m going to fail—there is no middle ground.”

Disclaimer: This tip may not apply to students at Tuskegee or Howard University, for obvious reasons.

7. Be the smart smartass, not the dumb smartass.

In every class, there’s always one kid who gets away with jokes and stupid humor, and one kid who never gets away with the same exact stuff. Here’s the lowdown on this contradiction: You can get away with saying the most ridiculous shit in class as long as the professor knows that you’re actually a pretty sharp cookie.

Some examples of stupid shit I’ve written or said without any negative consequences.

“She has a mullet?” –My verbal response to a film professor’s question: What did we learn about the protagonist’s sister in this film? (Why we were watching a Kelly Preston movie in film class, I have no idea.) Her response: Laughter.

“Because that’s all I drink.” –My verbal response to a business professor’s question: Why did company X only mention beer and milk in their campaign? His response: Laughter.

“I fear no man but Larry Bird. Because if you keep it close, he’s going to find a way to win the game.” –My written response to a writing professor’s question: What is your greatest fear? Her response: A checkmark.

There’s more retarded things I’ve done or said, like singing Elvis Costello in class, but as long as you say something sharp and insightful 1 out of every 2 or 3 times you open your mouth, then the professor will love you. Why? It’s the excitement of unpredictability; the professor never knows what he or she will get when you raise your hand. It’s only when you act like either a know-it-all or a class clown every single time you speak that the professor grows contempt for you. Mix it up. On a final note, female professors seem to appreciate this smart-ass behavior more so than male professors. Even the bitchiest of professors are easy to crack. I guess women just love guys with a sense of humor.

6. Know the smart kids.

Many years ago, many miles apart, my friends Deep and Griff were having difficulty with their computer science assignments. Try as they may, they just couldn’t get the shit to work. And in the world of computer science, no compile = no passing grade. So what did they do? They packed their bags and set off for India—also known as the 24 hour campus computer lab.

There they found programming wizards that could perform miracles on a keyboard, short of making a mouse pad disappear by pressing the End key. At the end of the night, they walked away with their assignments finished, content that they had slain the beast known as C++.

The lesson here is that you should always have a supporting cast of fellow students who can rescue your ass when you get stuck. Even if it means driving an hour and a half each way from U-Mass to WPI so that your engineer friend can help you with your Calc homework.

This approach goes for group assignments as well. Don’t pick the class Bambi or your drinking buddies as group partners, pick the smart, organized, responsible students. I know too many guys who formed groups with the classroom resident pieces of ass, only to get neither laid nor a good grade.

Sometimes, you just get stuck with a shitty team. In this case, you’ve got to pull a Kobe/CP3/Bird/Magic/MJ/LeBron and carry the team on your back. You do this by offering to be the one who compiles all the shit together at the end of the assignment (in other words, control the final edit). Don’t risk your grade by putting it in the hands of some Laguna Beach-watching sorority floozie. Hey, I never said it was always going to be easy.

5. Befriend the male professors, flirt with the female professors.

Most male professors will give your final grade a boost if you’ve demonstrated effort and it looks like you actually care about the material. However, you don’t actually have to work hard or give two shits about Marxism to make it appear as if you’re working hard. So how do you give off the impression that you’re burning the midnight oil with your nose buried in Org. Behavior textbooks?

For starters, show up to every class, a few minutes before the professor shows up if possible. Stay after class for a few minutes to chat with the professor. Don’t ask stupid questions that were already answered in class. That will just piss him off. Instead, mention certain related side-notes to the course material (ex. I just read in the paper this morning that ____________). Or if he obviously enjoys a certain hobby, activity, or band, talk about that. (This latter tactic works especially well with the hippie professors.)

Finally, once in a while email the professor at the crack of dawn, late at night, and on the weekends with course-related links or articles (ex. I found this article about __________ and I thought it might relate to ___________). Make it look like you’re putting in extra hours outside the classroom. Again, stay away from questions unless really necessary. No professor likes to spend his leisure hours answering dumbass questions from students. You also want to stay away from sending out emails at really ridiculous times (like 4 am), because then the professor might think you’re just insane.

Now if you’re a girl, DON’T flirt with the male professors. Sounds counterintuitive, right? The thing is, by overtly flirting with the professor you put yourself at risk of entering the pass/fail mode – either you get an A, or you get an F. If he feels that you’re trying to manipulate him, it’s game over. What you want to do is play “daddy’s little girl” instead. In other words, act cute and enthusiastic. Play the role of America’s sweetheart. I swear, I’ve seen this work so many times in the business world as well.

As for female professors, if you’re a guy, it’s ok to mildly flirt with them. It doesn’t even have to be anything sexual, just shoot the shit, talk about non-class related stuff, and throw in the occasional playful tease. Of course, do this when you’re in a one-on-one situation, not in the middle of lecture, where it’ll seem like a challenge of authority. Like many female teachers, many female professors are lonely and/or single.

If you’re a girl, whatever you do, don’t get on the female professor’s bad side. You ladies know what I’m talking about. Keep your ego and diva-ness in check, or you’ll be up shit creek without a paddle.

Finally, professors hate the fact that they have to sit in their office for a certain required number of hours each week. So what should you do? Obviously, go visit them. This tactic applies better for male professors than female professors.

4. Transfer to another section if necessary.

Every school lets you transfer out of a class within the first few weeks. If the syllabus looks difficult or the professor seems like a hard-ass, get out. Don’t hesitate. Also, if you’re in a class that has a “3 strikes and you’re out” attendance rule, and you happen to miss 2 classes in the first 2 weeks, get out if you can. Trust me; you’re not going to make it through the rest of the semester without missing another class.

3. The Internet is your friend.

The spring semester of my senior year, I needed to take a computer science course (a subject I am terrible at) in order to fulfill my program requirements (no pun intended). Unfortunately, the only course available to me was a grad level computer networks course. Thankfully, there was no programming required in the course, but there was a whole bunch of cats-crawling-up-binary-trees bullshit to deal with.

Because of the financial state I was in, I never got around to buying the textbook for the class. I also missed a quarter of the classes that semester. I figured that if I downloaded and studied the PowerPoint slides, I’d be safe. Hours before the final exam, I realized that I had a major problem—the PowerPoint slides revealed only the topics covered in class, and not the details. What did I do? I started Googling like mad (remember, there was no Wikipedia back—you spoiled bastards). I took all the topics I knew jack shit about, and Googled the following: “Define: (Topic)” for each one. I did this for a few hours, then took the exam. Ironically, I was one of the only students who received an A on that exam. Goes to show what a scam textbooks are these days, I guess [end editorial].

In another one of my classes (this time a World Literature course), I would just read the Amazon.com description and user reviews for the book. Believe it or not, I was frequently the only one who could answer the professor’s questions during the lecture, despite not having read an actual page of the book.

Today, I’ve found Google and Wikipedia to be excellent for general information, with message boards being the best method for specialized information. There’s really no excuse for not having at least a cursory knowledge of the material.

2. Ask and you may receive.

Most people don’t realize that if you ask for a better grade, you may get it.

At the end of the final class of the semester, I was able to convince one of my professors that I deserved an A- instead of a B+. How did I do it? Honestly, I don’t even remember what I said. I just asked. And surprisingly enough, she agreed.

This is not a unique phenomenon; I know several friends who have successfully done this in the past as well. Oddly enough, the professor doesn’t even have to like you (though it does help in most instances). One of my friends finally managed to convince his project adviser to give him a passing grade after much persistence. The adviser’s final words to him were: “Now get out of here before I change I mind!”

1. Pick the easy professors.

The elusive obvious. Before you register for ANY course, go online and look up ratings for each professor in each course section. You won’t believe how much the difficulty of one course varies from professor to professor (refer back to Tip #4). I used RateMyProfessors.com the most when I was in college, and I’m sure a bunch of other professor review sites and have popped up since then. I kid you not, this simple step saved my academic life.

Master these 8 lessons, and you’ll have plenty of more time to do what you should be doing in undergrad: partying, meeting new people, having late night conversations about nothing, discovering great music, taking road trips, and making best friends for life.

Remember kids: work smarter, not harder.

-The Boston Bachelor

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