Two days before the professor is scheduled to release the class’s first graded assignment, Math 295 student Jennifer Clements told several friends that “the class is pretty easy.”
Clements, an LSA freshman, was reportedly “good at math in high school.”
“Math was by far my best subject,” said Clements. “I guess calculus doesn’t get that much harder, because this class is a breeze. I finished the first practice homework in, like, thirty minutes. Must be easy, right?”
Math 295 is the first step in a sequence of theoretical mathematics classes, averaging a 30–40% dropout rate. Clements remains confident, however, citing her “3 but definitely should have been a 4” on the AB Calculus exam.
“My advisor was all like, ‘be careful with your GPA first semester!’” Clements told her friends. “Maybe I should be advising him, because it’s smooth sailing for me so far.”
“After taking this class I’m probably going to major in math,” continued the freshman. “Only probably—I figure it would be sort of boring to do a job this easy all the time.”
In preparation for the assignment, Professor Eric DeYoung released several ungraded problem sets to help students get some practice, which Clements reportedly found “easy” after skimming the solutions PDF.
“I can solve these problems without even showing work. The professor is going to be so impressed,” said Clements. “I’m probably going to just test out of the next class or something. I hope that one is at least a little bit challenging.”
When reached for comment on Clements’ statements, Professor DeYoung simply laughed.
