Luckily, in my first year, I avoided having to use iClickers for my classes. As a second year, I'm not so lucky. I use my clicker for over half of my classes this semester. 

I strongly dislike iClickers because, let's face it, sometimes the clicker questions are the only reason I get out of bed and make it to class. But to me it's more than just a nagging reminder and incentive to go to class: iClickers are an affront to our liberty as students at the University of Virginia.

The original motives of the implementation of iClicker questions in class, such as to incentivize students to attend lectures more often and to provide some sort of interaction for students in large lectures, appear to be benign. But I believe that they strip the student body of their freedom and self-responsibility. 

A huge part of growing up and learning to be on one's own involves prioritizing time and having to make choices in time-tight situations. There's no better place to experiment and learn those lessons than in college where the stakes are not so high that a mistake is irrevocable. So, it's essentially asinine to penalize students who are figuring out how to best manage their time for missing lecture. 

Aside from prioritizing time, it should be entirely at the students' discretion whether or not they should attend class or lecture. If a student decides to skip classes all the time, he or she needs to learn the consequences of that choice. By the same token, a student that goes to every single lecture does not need to be patted on the back for doing so with iClicker participation points. Students should be attending or not attending lecture with complete freedom in the choice; they should not be nagged by the iClicker system.

We are adults. We may still be students, but the University should treat us as the adults we are. Ultimately, iClickers hind our freedom to make the choices that adults make on a daily basis.