Grove City College has been known by many to provide its students with a rather rigorous academic curriculum. Whether you are a straight-A student, or if you sit somewhere more toward the middle of the class, it is usually rare to locate students on this campus that would disagree with the maxim regarding Grove City’s difficult course load. No matter what field of study you select, both the courses included in your specific program as well as the humanities core challenge you all over the intellectual spectrum. With this in mind, many of the students later on in their college years will still have credit hours to fill and take a very systematic approach to scheduling the general electives needed to reach their “magic number.”
While it is true that every student must take at least a few general electives independent of the rest of their classes, it seems to be a common theme for people to look for “GPA boosters” and seek for the most convenient option regardless of their actual interest in the material. As it stands, this approach comes off to a good amount of the students as “fine” and just a necessary step in completing the respective degree programs they find themselves working toward. The truth, though, is that Grove City offers many valuable courses beyond your average “underwater basket-weaving” (as one of my high school teachers used to say) type classes you may find at other universities.
Instead of being worried solely on the number value of your GPA, in my personal experience I have found it very rewarding to base my schedule on attempting to both challenge myself, but to also enroll into courses that I find interesting. Obviously, there is some type of balance that should be applied here, but generally it can be a rewarding decision to venture into unfamiliar waters. Especially in the context of a Christian worldview, God often reveals his plan to us in unexpected ways, which in this circumstance could be the discovery of a gift, talent, passion, etc. that would have been otherwise unrealized without leaving the typical comfort zone.
