Politics students?

I really hate to be let down. Really.

But sometimes academia is quite surprisingly a delight. Let's take for example my American Political Parties course. Where Professor W incorporated the insaneness of the American political party system into the spoiled-ness of us undergrads romping around with our iPods and BMWs (he had this thing with BMWs, either he really wanted one or one crashed into his car and he now loathes them). His agenda of frequent swearing, observing students walking by the lecture hall through the windows, and cutting class short (because, let's be honest, none of us wanted to be there anyways) made him quite the popular professor. Even his illegible writing didn't deter my interest.

Then there was African Politics. You know, a whole lot of waking up early for the 8:30am course only because attendance counted (and let's be honest, when courses are that early attendance should count). That was the point when I discovered that the less work I did the better grade I received. I also learned that I shouldn't spend $90 on 100 page books I won't ever read.

And then there was Ethnicity, Nationalism and Politics... and I was shaking in my panties. No joke. I'm sure my jaw wasn't the only one that hit the floor when I read: Research paper 25-50 pages. Come on, this isn't a thesis people, this is a 3 credit course! Needless to say that course is on the backburner as other options are explored.

But in all honesty, we are politics students. There's a large possibility that some of us will one day hold a political office. Perhaps many of us will go off to law school. And maybe I will just end up riding horses.

People often ask me about becoming a polititian or law school and my response has, of late, been that being a Politics major has taught me that I don't want to be involved with Politics. For the love of Hanes Walton this was not supposed to be the outcome! If I weren't in so deep I would turn right around and do something useful, like Astrobiology. (really, what happened to that prospective major? I should kick myself.)

The thing is that we're supposed to know something about politics. Like, let's be honest, I don't even know what or where Abkhazia is (was that in a Harry Potter book....?) See, I just want to attend a Politics course that is useful to me, not just a bunch of terms and graphs that muddle together and are forgotten at the end of the semester. Maybe I just need another South African Politics course, at least it was relatable to life.

So? Henceforth begins the quest for the best of the worst Politics courses. Thanks AP, I think you're going to owe me for the stresses (and possible hours of dullness) on this one.