How long do you wait before leaving a class?

[Ninjahedge]

Mandatory attendance is a bit of a joke in university unless you're working a team project. Lectures? The way I see it, you're paying for it so if you don't go, its your loss.

It took me until Senior Year in college to realize this.

Yes, I am an oldie, but look at it this way. My tuition was $18K/year. $9K per semester, about 5 classes per semester = $1800 per class.

In a standard semester, you have maybe 14 weeks, give or take 12 actual instructional classes. That comes out to about $150 per class. You skip a class, you are pretty much chucking $150 to the wind (by OLD tuition standards. Scale up for your own).

You get a snow day, yipee? You miss 4 classes in a day you are out $600!!!! No, they do not give you your money back. they do not reschedule. $600, gone.

While this may not matter in classes like "Introduction to Sitting In One Place" and "Advanced Sitting In One Place And Looking Busy" (both important in the business world), for ones like Advanced Mathematics, Modern Physics or Non Linear Analysis is is a major rip.

I guess the key is, do you really have anything to do if you leave early? Is this your last class of the day? Do you have a break in between? If not, just camp for a bit longer, do some work, surf, whatever. If so, 15-20 minutes should be fine. But make sure you are the 3rd or 4th person to leave. Also, notify your dean. You are paying for this class, there is NO excuse for the teacher to not be there (with no notification).

 

[CRXican]

15 minute "rule"

 

[meltdown75]

it was 10 mins when i was in uni. i'd just sit there for 20 and if the prof wasn't there, you get to chill out and think... wow... i'm in school. this is awesome. then you leave

 

[Ninjahedge]

Forum Burp.

 

[Inferno0032]

The policy at my school is that if an instructor doesn't show up before 15 minutes after the class is supposed to start, you are free to leave.

 

[wiredspider]

Yeah it's sad. Kinda sucks that she didn't notify us :\

Yea, doesn't she have to at least notify the university? Usually then they can have a secretary or aid to sent out the mass email and post up some flyers where the class is held to notify the students if they missed the email.

 

[roguerower]

I treated late teachers the same way I treated late buses in grade school. 15 minutes or more late, looks like I got the day/class off.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I never went to class... even the ones with mandatory attendance. I just took the 10% hit on my grade and made up for it by acing the tests.

It kind of pissed the teachers off, because there would always be a curve, so I would still end up getting an A anyway.

Yeah, basically the same for me. If a professor came up with something that took a ridiculous amount of time for the percentage of my grade that was based on it (ex. 100+ hours of class attendance = 10% of my grade or a 50 hour project = 2% of my grade), I just didn't do it. In the real world, this is the type of stuff that doesn't get done because the ROI is incredibly low. You don't spend 3 weeks doing something that's going to add $10/month to your bottom line.

 

[sjwaste]

It took me until Senior Year in college to realize this.

Yes, I am an oldie, but look at it this way. My tuition was $18K/year. $9K per semester, about 5 classes per semester = $1800 per class.

In a standard semester, you have maybe 14 weeks, give or take 12 actual instructional classes. That comes out to about $150 per class. You skip a class, you are pretty much chucking $150 to the wind (by OLD tuition standards. Scale up for your own).

You get a snow day, yipee? You miss 4 classes in a day you are out $600!!!! No, they do not give you your money back. they do not reschedule. $600, gone.

While this may not matter in classes like "Introduction to Sitting In One Place" and "Advanced Sitting In One Place And Looking Busy" (both important in the business world), for ones like Advanced Mathematics, Modern Physics or Non Linear Analysis is is a major rip.

I guess the key is, do you really have anything to do if you leave early? Is this your last class of the day? Do you have a break in between? If not, just camp for a bit longer, do some work, surf, whatever. If so, 15-20 minutes should be fine. But make sure you are the 3rd or 4th person to leave. Also, notify your dean. You are paying for this class, there is NO excuse for the teacher to not be there (with no notification).

Except that you're paying for the learning experience and the degree, not per lecture. There were classes that I routinely skipped because I'd taken from them all I needed to, and I still don't feel bad about it.

Yes, skipping Calc II was a bad idea so I wouldn't do that, but skipping an intro botany/zoology lecture was fine. Both were memorization coursesand I could look at the diagrams myself - especially when the profs were awful instructors and were clearly just doing the bare minimum so they could get back to their research.

The only one that was really strange was a law prof I had for crim pro, and she required attendance. A lot of people got pissed at her when she handed out the syllabus with that requirement, since night students often had shit come up and sometimes couldn't be there - family issue, work, etc. She was an awesome prof and no one in their right mind would skip her lecture, because it was engaging and your notes were all you'd need to study from.

 

[yinan]

I hope you're joking. I'v watched them PT and 0530 PT time to them means 0545.

Nope not joking. 545? Thats sleeping in.

 

[alkemyst]

I never went to class... even the ones with mandatory attendance. I just took the 10% hit on my grade and made up for it by acing the tests.

It kind of pissed the teachers off, because there would always be a curve, so I would still end up getting an A anyway.

liberal arts majors have it so easy.

 

[Wyndru]

This is damn college not kindergarden... Fuck stupid mandatory attendance policies

AFAIK, they do this to catch all of the people that use financial aid and never go to class, so they can drop their aid, and not waste everyone's money.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

What we used to do was sign our names on the blackboard or a piece of paper and leave after 20 minutes. That way the prof knows you showed up.

Mandatory attendance is a bit of a joke in university unless you're working a team project. Lectures? The way I see it, you're paying for it so if you don't go, its your loss.

I generally agree that university students are adults and should be treated as such.

That said, to help maintain ABA accreditation, most law schools impose mandatory attendance policies on students. See standard 304(b) of the ABA accreditation standards:

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/20072008StandardsWebContent/Chapter%203.pdf

FWIW, I am a law school professor, and my school requires that I take attendance. As they say, shit flows downhill.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

10 minutes. If I'm expected to be on time, so are they. My professors always got bent out of shape when people walked in late.

In law school, I only recall one no-show. In the night program, that's a pretty shitty thing for a prof to do considering most of us had to get from our jobs to the school during rush hour and then be there until 9 or 10.

Agreed. I hated it when professors no-showed when I was in law school (I also attended at night). But, the thing that made me angriest in law school is when I scheduled an appointment to discuss a paper I was writing for one of the law journals. The appointment was scheduled for 4PM on a day that I did not have class. Since I worked full time and school was an hour away (only 5 miles, but 60 minutes with traffic), I took leave to attend the meeting. When I showed up at the appointed time, I was surprised to find the professor's office filled with (daytime law) students. Because he was meeting with these other students (who did not have an appointment) the professor told me that he could not discuss my paper, and to "come back another time. I left, walked back to my car, opened the car door, shut the car door, turned around (now furious), and walked back into the professor's office without knocking. I then proceeded to tell the professor (who was only 2 years older than myself) that he was unprofessional, that I took valuable time out of my schedule to attend the meeting, and that I would like to know where he would like me to send the bill for the $450 I could have made in the two hours I wasted on the pretense of attending a meeting with him (I was a student associate in a law firm at the time, and my billing rate was $225/hour). This was all done in front of the cadre of students he had in his office.

To make a long story short, the professor apologized, kicked the (visibly shocked) students out of his office, and we had our meeting.

 

[mundane]

..

 

[Phoenix86]

15-20 minutes. However, there is very likely a policy to handle this given the mandatory attendance policy.

 

[BoomerD]

15 minutes.

I was fortunate in that I had very few professors who had mandatory attendance policies. One was very hardcore.
You were allowed 2 absences during the semester. 3 tardies equaled one absence...Once you hit 3 absences without a GOOD excuse...you were dropped from the class.

 

[KeithTalent]

Eh? Mandatory attendance in University? Never heard of such a thing. If I did not go to class it was on me, the professors did not give a shit, nor should they.

As for the question in the OP I usually waited 10-15 minutes before leaving when the prof did not show.

KT

 

[Malak]

15 minute "rule"

Yeah I thought everyone knew this rule. Mandatory or not, if they aren't there by 15 after you are free to go.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

I don't even know if this prof has a mandatory attendance policy. I'v looked in the syllabus and it doesn't even mention it. The kicker is that she does take roll every class :\ so I'm just going to assume 2 - 3 days missed max.

She's still isn't here @ 9:55

C'mon ATOT, pay attention!

Pics of Prof?

 

[DrPizza]

15 minutes? And if you left, what else would you do? Go somewhere else on campus to study? Do homework? Since you have to hang out somewhere, just hang out in the classroom. But, of course, not until one of you informs the department secretary that the prof didn't show up. If it's incredibly unusual (i.e. he's never been a minute late for a class in 20 years), maybe there's an underlying reason - maybe he's on the floor in his garage, suffering a heart attack. At least, I hope there's a good reason for a prof to miss class. In all my years of schooling, I can only remember once or twice where a class was canceled at the last moment & in each case, there was a note on the door.

 

[alfa147x]

15 minutes? And if you left, what else would you do? Go somewhere else on campus to study? Do homework? Since you have to hang out somewhere, just hang out in the classroom. But, of course, not until one of you informs the department secretary that the prof didn't show up. If it's incredibly unusual (i.e. he's never been a minute late for a class in 20 years), maybe there's an underlying reason - maybe he's on the floor in his garage, suffering a heart attack. At least, I hope there's a good reason for a prof to miss class. In all my years of schooling, I can only remember once or twice where a class was canceled at the last moment & in each case, there was a note on the door.

I went home and slept Next class was at 2

 

[alfa147x]

C'mon ATOT, pay attention!

Pics of Prof?

Dude it's rough

http://personal.georgiasouthern.edu/~cfrogers/

 

[guyver01]

So... how long after class starts does the professor dock you for not being there?

it's only fair that the same rule applies to them.

 

[alkemyst]

Most colleges have this outlined in their manuals/rules as far as how long a professor can be late before the student is permitted to leave.