MSUpartystories came out with a list recently that ranked classes in terms of difficulty. The top five hardest classes at MSU were CEM 141, CSE 101, ISS 225 (John Molloy’s class specifically), ACC 201 and EC 201.
Economics professor Charles Ballard, who teaches EC 201, said he doesn’t think the class is hard. Rather, he thinks some students are unwilling to put forth an effort.
Ballard said he feels most people who do poorly probably skipped class often, didn’t read the textbook and didn’t take the homework problem sets seriously. All of which, he said, has more to do with the student’s maturity than the class itself.
“It’s a college course, and there, I think, is where a lot of students find it to be hard because many of my students have not had very thorough preparation in high school," he said. "Not many (students) have been pushed to do the volume of work they’re required to do in a college course."
Another issue is some students expect the class to be breeze because they took economics in high school and received a good grade.
“Even if you had a good high school course, there’s just enough new stuff and enough ideas that you can’t waltz through my course just on the basis of what you learned in high school,” he said.
That being said, Ballard said he recognizes some people get a bad grade in his class simply because they can’t quite understand the concept of economics.
Finance senior Aylin Cokdegerli said the hardest she’s ever taken at MSU was MTH 309, or Linear Algebra.
“It was a very abstract way of thinking about math because it involved a lot of proofs and it wasn’t the way that I would usually learn math,” she said.
For those students struggling in any class, Ballard and Cokdegerli have a few tips that might be of use.
Ballard’s number one tip is do the work. Elaborating, he said that means coming to class every day, sober, awake and ready to learn. That also requires reading the textbook, completing the homework and not waiting until the night before an exam to start studying.
“It’s going to be very difficult to cram before a college exam because there’s just more material,” he said. “I don’t believe most of the material is extensively difficult, but there’s enough material that if you wait until the night before exam, you won’t have time to absorb it all.”
Cokdegerli also advises students to put in the time studying. In addition, she said students should seek help from professors whenever they need it, which is what helped her survive Linear Algebra.
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