A CU student meeting with their academic advisor (Courtesy of The University of Colorado Boulder)
Alexia: Hi! I’m Alexia Bailey, a sophomore here at CU Boulder. While I may just be in my second year, I’m here to share everything I’ve picked up so far, which is a surprising amount of information. “What’s Eating at Alexia” is my unofficial and unfiltered guide to some of the things that being a CU Boulder Buff brings. Think of it as your guide to navigating everything that makes CU Boulder, well, CU Boulder. Whether you’re a freshman finding your footing or a senior with “no body, no crime” level grievances about finals week, I’m here to share my takes, tips and honest observations on everything from the sometimes-unpredictable Buff Bus system to navigating campus protests (or dodging them entirely). College is a wild, unforgettable ride, and “What’s eating at Alexia” is here to make sense of some of it, one opinion at a time.
Friday, Jan. 23 marked the drop in temperatures, a light dusting of snow and me breaking up with someone I’d only just started seeing. I mean, we barely knew each other, but we had potential. The kind of potential you convince yourself is rare, promising on paper, exciting in theory, but absolutely exhausting in practice. This breakup didn’t involve tears or slammed doors. It involved a laptop, a registration portal and the very careful hovering of my cursor over the “drop” button. No dramatic last words, no closure conversation—dropping that class was just a single click and a wave of guilt I didn’t expect to feel so strongly.
At the University of Colorado Boulder, Friday, Jan. 23, was the last day to drop a class without it showing up as a “W” on your transcript. As I dropped the class, that wave came over me, and I realized that there’s something uniquely stressful about the first two months of class. In between the color-coded schedules, the 8 a.m. regrets and the full-on panic when you realize your “easy elective” requires three books and a weekly discussion post, dropping a class feels less like an academic decision and more like a confession: I bit off more than I can chew.
However, per usual, I don’t believe it to be so. Dropping a class can be a unique, hard and guilt-ridden decision to make, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth it. I know how uncomfortable it can be to walk into a room that feels unwelcoming, to feel overwhelmed by daily quizzes and to feel the very faint death of wanting to challenge yourself happen in your heart. Honestly, I feel like we’re taught from a very young age that one should treat every academic choice like a test of character, that quitting is weakness, and perseverance is the only virtue that counts. From suffocating Advanced Placement (AP) classes in high school to 4000-level Russian history classes, it feels embarrassing to quit. It feels like the easy way out, like you could’ve persevered. But sometimes perseverance looks less like pushing through and more like knowing when to step back. Sometimes it’s choosing sanity over stubbornness and balance over burnout.
I’m not telling you to drop a class without thought. Throw caution to the wind, dear reader. I mean, dropping a class is a big decision, and I highly recommend talking to your academic advisor to help figure out if that is the right decision for you. Despite popular culture, academic advisors are, in fact, there to help you graduate on time. They can help decipher your degree audit, find classes that fulfill certain requirements and help you discover important campus resources. If going to your advisor for a conversation feels daunting, you can always go to Ralphie’s Advising Help Lab, located in CASE E251, for drop-in help. And just to be clear, this is not a paid advertisement for academic advisors. No one is sponsoring this column. I simply discovered, to my great surprise, that asking for help sometimes actually works.
However, because the drop deadline has now passed, a W (withdrawal) grade will appear on your transcript if you drop a class between now and the advertised last day to drop, which is Thurs, Mar. 24. You will also be responsible for paying the full tuition and fees for the dropped class, according to the Office of the Registrar.
So, with the more serious consequences in place, it may lead you to ask, is it worth it? What does dropping a class even really mean? Well, for one, dropping doesn’t mean you’re weak. It doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t even mean you don’t care about your education. It just means you’re human. College is full of experiments in schedules, in subjects, in time management and in girls. Some experiments work. Some don’t. And some, like my brief romance with Russian history, end in a dignified click of a button.
And yes, there’s still that little guilt, the voice whispering, “You should have tried harder; you could have survived.” But here’s the thing: I believe that sometimes trying harder isn’t the same as growing smarter. Sometimes the smarter, braver choice is to step back, breathe and redirect your energy to something that actually works for you. It’s allowing yourself time to be you, to cook, to paint, to play The Sims 4. So, if you find yourself hovering over the “drop” button, wrestling with indecision, remember this: you’re allowed to choose yourself. You’re allowed to make your life a little easier, your workload a little lighter and your mental health a little stronger. And if anyone tries to guilt you for it, just smile politely and know you made a strategic life move.
Just…maybe don’t tell anyone I said that. We don’t need my academic advisors thinking I’ve gone rogue with the drop button.
Contact CU Independent Opinion Editor Alexia Bailey at alexia.bailey@colorado.edu
