It’s the beginning of a new quarter here at Ohio State, so it’s once again time to crack open those textbooks. And I’m serious about cracking open textbooks.

This being my last quarter at OSU, my routine is solid and I’m not straying from it.

At the beginning of each quarter, I put in as much effort as possible in all of my classes. Take, for example, the earth sciences class (for GEC credit) I’m in now.

For the second day of class, we had 23-pages of reading to do. We didn’t have a quiz on the reading and we weren’t told we would have a quiz on the reading, but I did it anyway.

During the first few weeks of quarters, I’ve done almost every single one of the assigned readings for my classes. And later, if I find out I still might be able to get a high grade for the class (A+, A, or A-) without doing the assigned reading and merely taking notes and listening to lectures, then that’s what I’ll begin doing after the first few weeks.

It’s better to start out ahead than start out lagging behind. Then, if you decide you can throttle back a little, let the reins hang loosely, there you go. Just don’t let them go completely or else, plop. You’ll get a lower grade than you were expecting.

You’ll find those classes where doing the assigned readings benefit you significantly, mostly noticeable in midterms and finals performance. You’ll fail reading quizzes if you didn’t do the readings or you’ll fail them sometimes even if you only read the Sparknotes.

Now, like I said before, I consider a high grade only an A+, A, or A-, and I strive to get an A in every class. Does anyone really not want to be able to include their G.P.A. on their resume?

Employers don’t only care about whether you’ve graduated. They want to see how well you did, especially if you’re pursuing something in your field of study. That’s my experience anyway, studying creative writing and English and striving to go into publishing.

I get pissed when people in my major do not do the assignments. This thing happened in my British literature class two years ago, which only English majors were in, that made me want to throw a desk across the room.

We had to read something like 50-pages in two days in “V for Vendetta,” a graphic novel (so less words and more pictures).

Before we had a quiz on the pages we read, my classmates and I sat down. Someone to the right me asked, “Did you do the reading?”

I said, “Yes, did you?”

“No.”

“Are you an English major?”

He said back, “Yeah, man.”

I stared at the floor; I wanted to scream at him. What the fck? Do you understand we are reading a comic book about sword fighting, a masked rebel, genocide, political upheaval and taking down the establishing authority? And you’re an English major? Doesn’t that book sound awesome? Why wouldn’t you read it? You’re supposed to enjoy this sht.

What I’m getting at is whatever major someone is in he or she should like it enough to do the work. That’s ultimately why we choose a major, to study what we enjoy studying. If we enjoy it, why not do the work?