Others agree that classes are as hard as students want them to be.

Though he disagrees with the title "Heroes for Zeroes," Nagy says he makes jokes about the name in class.

"The course is very challenging to profound thinkers but easy for 'superficial' thinkers," Nagy says. "It's what you bring into it and get out of it that matters."

Nagy admits there might not be as much reading in his course as in other classes but that it demands careful attention.

"Even if the reading may not be quite as voluminous as in some other courses it requires very careful and slow reading," Nagy says, "and some of the characters in the literature go from zero to hero like in the Odyssey."

Becoming a Gut

Students say they rely on the CUE and Confidential Guides, word-of-mouth and syllabi with few requirements to identify easy classes.

Boris Alvarado '96 says he took "Rocks for Jocks" in part because "it seemed like the easiest Core [course] in the CUE Guide in terms of work and difficulty."

Thong Q. Le '98 says he identified "Heroes" as a gut by reading the CUE Guide review and talking to juniors and seniors who had taken the class.

"It was probably one of the first classes that I heard of that was supposed to be a gut," Le said. "I was kind of interested in that aspect of it."

A first-year in Thayer who asked for anonymity says that she thought "The Changing Surface of the Earth" was a gut because of what upperclass students told her as well as a low difficulty rating in the CUE Guide.

She says she took the class because she is not a good science student and thought that it was a gut.

"I thought that it would be an easy way to fulfill my science requirement," she says. "I'm not into geology or anything."

Alison C. May '96 says she took "Rocks for Jocks" in part because of its CUE Guide ratings which she says revealed it was "a combination of good professor and easy class."

Both students say the class turned out not to be a gut.