Whether through procrastination, cheating, or declaring as a communications major, there are a number of ways to coast through college.
Chris Morran's "Hardly Working at College: The Overachieving Underperformer's Guide to Graduating without Cracking a Book" is the perfect guide to slack off and still get good grades.
Chris Morran is an award-winning playwright, actor, and comic from New York City. He is also the author of "Hardly Working: The Overachieving Underperformer's Guide to Doing as Little as Possible in the Office."
This comical guide starts off defining exactly what an overachieving underperformer is.
"Her appearance and classroom demeanor reek of grade grubbing; and yet she hasn't been to a class in a week," Morran describes. "Her grades are better than average, and the faculty all seem to know her on a first-name basis; yet she doesn't study, and her writing is mediocre."
Chris Morran takes us through every aspect of college. From picking the right school to getting letters of recommendation and finally setting off to find a real job, the book covers everything.
"Hardly working" contains diagrams of where to sit in the lecture hall in hopes of getting noticed without being called on, tips on how to dress like a professor, and charts mapping out the appropriate time during a semester to actually start doing work.
Why would anyone want to take a class that demands hard work when there's a class more suitable for your loafing characteristics available? "Hardly Working" has an entire chapter devoted to researching classes before enrolling.
A particularly funny chapter entitled "Friends with Benefits: Choosing Just the Right Words When Borrowing Someone's Notes" entails different scenarios to obtain a classmate's notes. Examples like "The Flirt" instruct the reader to wink and compliment their targets in order to obtain the notes from the class you slept through.
While the guide is a very enjoyable read, it gets a little dull at the end. Morran seems to run out of funny material and starts getting serious. It is hard to fault him on this, because finding a job or going to graduate school isn't necessarily a fun thing to do.
It won't take long to get into this book, and it might be a good read if just to read during leisure time.
This book should be a required read for all college students, but it's obvious that professors would never approve as the book itself says "Banned on Campus." Though meant for the lackadaisical at heart, even the smartest students should get some enjoyment out of the book.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
