It's week 13. Week of Thanksgiving break and my alarm goes off. 6:20 a.m. The time that I start four out of five school days every week. I have an on-campus job that I work every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 7 a.m. Tuesdays, I get a nice break and don't have to wake up until 8:45 a.m. By the end of the week, I'm dragging. I take 16 credit hours, work pretty much full-time between my three jobs, and have my sorority commitments along with attempting to have some form of enjoyable human contact, studying, and sleep. I have a full plate. So it really bothers me that sometimes I have classes with mandatory attendance.
Ah, yes. The joyous class(es) that counts attendance toward your final grade. This semester, I'm lucky and only have three out of five classes that counts it. Three is now lucky? My experimental psychology class heavily bases my participation (aka I have to be there) to count toward my grade in the class. Human sexuality has an attendance sheet that is passed around, and if I don't miss a class the whole semester, I get extra credit (at least I'm being rewarded for sitting in a two and a half hour class). My online class, Geology of Energy Resources, also counts attendance. Yes, my professor grades me on how long I spend on each section of material in addition to my assignments and quizzes. My other two classes, Abnormal Psychology and Dynamics of Personality, do not take attendance, but students are obviously encouraged to not miss class.
I'll be honest. Besides my online class and Human Sexuality, I have skipped at least one class of each of my classes. I'm not counting sickness as skipping either. I'm saying I deliberately decided that I just didn't want to go.
I'm actually more inclined to go to the classes that do not require me to be there. I have more of a desire to go and want to learn the material and pay attention. I'm the type of person that if you're trying to make me do something, I will want to do it less and less and probably turn my sass on and just go against everything you're telling me. I'm very stubborn. If a professor is sitting there day after day, droning on about the class and reading exactly from the PowerPoint, chances are I'm not listening. I could read the book (which is where they got 95 percent of their material) and learn this on my own time. That's why I don't go. I have a million and one things to do and sometimes class doesn't fit in my schedule that day. Sometimes I need a mental health break because of the million and one things I have. I need to work at my own pace. I'll learn the material and I'll make sure to get the notes if necessary, but sorry not sorry, I won't be attending class that day. I should be graded on my ability to learn the material and my knowledge of it, not how often I attend your class.
Maybe one day, students will actually want to go to every class. They will want to be present in the lecture and not because they have to be there. Professors should give their policies another look over, because if I have the choice of going to class or staying in my warm bed and not have a penalty, my bed will win every time.
