Someone, please....explain this.

[purbeast0]

I can see that argument, but on the other hand, universities probably want to keep their rankings up as high as possible (grades, accomplishments, graduates, etc) and one way for that is to try to get kids to go to class as much as possible.

but going to class doesn't mean someone automatically gets good grades. i went to 3 classes my last semester of my econ class and got a B in the class. i can guarantee if i went to all classes i would NOT have gotten an A in the class.

 

[waggy]

Okay fine....but then they should keep their mouth shut about how they can't find a job after their party is over.

what does that have to do with it? if they can skip class and still pass they graduate.

what does them skipping class have to do with work again? lol

I showed up for class. We didn't have a policy on it. no grade reduction if you didn't show up. The only issue was you would miss pop quizzes. Long as you were in class when he gave it you received a 100% (lol one was what is your name and today's date)

I had a buddy who was very smart with a high IQ. he would skip the class yet Ace every test with ease. He would spend his free time in the library researching whatever paper he was working on.

but going to class doesn't mean someone automatically gets good grades. i went to 3 classes my last semester of my econ class and got a B in the class. i can guarantee if i went to all classes i would NOT have gotten an A in the class.

just as someone skipping often does not automatically mean they are going to fail. both both are likely. you show up you tend to get better grades.

 

[Schfifty Five]

but going to class doesn't mean someone automatically gets good grades. i went to 3 classes my last semester of my econ class and got a B in the class. i can guarantee if i went to all classes i would NOT have gotten an A in the class.

But it is a good indicator or factor in getting good grades. It's a pretty safe assumption that going to class leads to better grades overall than not.

 

[Aharami]

she makes it sound like a problem, then not a problem, then a problem again. i would give her a C for this article.

and i dont think its a legit anything. the professor can do whatever he/she wants wrt attendance grading.

the college paper at my college was so bad (grammatical/spelling/general idiocy) that i loved to read it just to look for all the stupid mistakes

yea I was confused which side she was arguing for

 

[ThinClient]

I can see that argument, but on the other hand, universities probably want to keep their rankings up as high as possible (grades, accomplishments, graduates, etc) and one way for that is to try to get kids to go to class as much as possible.

None of that has anything to do with whether the student is in class or not.

Several classes in college I basically sat home reading the book and teaching myself. I'd show up for the rare homework turn-ins and I'd show up for exams and pass them.

If I'm paying for it and I'm nailing the grades, then the instructor can lick my furry butt crack before I listen to him bullshit some stupid reason why I need to be wasting my time sitting in his classroom.

 

[diesbudt]

College is retarded. I can't tell you how worthless it was for me, but it was a waste of money sadly .


Yes, at my college it was 2-3 allowed absences, then after that your grade dropped a letter for each additional day.

You must have done it wrong.

 

[Gooberlx2]

she makes it sound like a problem, then not a problem, then a problem again. i would give her a C for this article.

Yeah, this.

Definitely up to the prof. Required attendance for 100+ person GE lectures is lame imo, but it is what it is. Make a "study hall" out of it if you're not going to pay attention.

I think I attended, maybe, 20% of the classes for my psych 100 course. The grade was 50% paper and 50% final exam. Easy as fuck, prof didn't take attendance, and I had better things to do.

My 100+ person Soc 100 prof took attendance. Made all those classes, and just studied for my harder courses.

For smaller and/or higher level courses, you can certainly expect attendance (or participation, rather) to be a part of the grade...as it should be.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Disclaimer: I skipped a lot of classes in college.

I never really understood attendance grades in college. I know that the "real world" includes attendance as part of your performance evaluation. College is not the real world and school isn't intended to measure your life skills (ex. attendance, appropriate attire, appropriate communication skills, etc.). College is intended to measure your ability to learn, understand, and apply complex concepts and skills. You pay money for people to teach you things and/or to have the recognition that you have learned these things. If you feel that you can learn these things on your own without attending class, who cares? I know some professors will get their feelings hurt because they think it's a challenge of their intellect and teaching skills, but it's not. I just didn't want to spend time sitting in a classroom when I can learn the same material by reading the book for a half hour.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

At my school, some idiot freshman went to the dean and complained that Psychology 100 was too easy. Psych. Freaking. 100.

The professor, who was one of the coolest guys we knew, basically House in real life and taught really well, was forced to conform to the standard exam structure that every other class had and was forced to get rid of alot of the humor from his lectures.

I've always wanted to kill that particular freshman.

 

[Imp]

I skipped my first year and barely avoided flunking out... Then I worked harder, and went to class, and started succeeding.

If people didn't want to go to class, whatever. They're just wasting their tuition.

 

[JulesMaximus]

My University basically has a rag for a school newspaper. They hire these College kids to "report" on stuff and most of what we end up with are weekly Op-ed's about unimportant things or non-issues.

Today, I check the rag because I had free time at work...and I came across this:



http://statenews.com/article/2013/09/attendance-policies-shouldnt-be-necessary



I mean, is this even a legitimate grievance? Most of my classes only allow 2 skips before your grade starts dropping. She gets 7 and thats a problem? Having to use iClickers for class participation is also a problem?

I don't think this chica is ready for College. Can't believe she is even stressed about getting a job related to her major. She should be stressed about getting a job with that attitude.

So go get a job writing for the paper if you think you can do better. :hmm:

 

[BlitzPuppet]

You must have done it wrong.

Nope, picked MIS as a major since I really liked computers. I completed all of the MIS classes by early JR year. Then I was left with All the accounting, economics etc etc to do...Couldn't force myself to remain interested in that stuff. Hell, I walked out of my MIS Networking class without fully understanding DHCP...and I got an A!

I then dropped down to a part time student and started working at an MSP...I was learning faster at job by getting certs and getting hands on experience so I opted to "drop out" of college and go the certs route. That job turned into a career, although at a different company, and I'm happy where I am now.

My college failed me, not saying it's worthless for everyone but it was for me.

 

[Red Storm]

Attendance recording in college never made sense to me. We're all adults, if someone wants to skip class let them, if they know their stuff and do well on the exams and homework then what else is there to care about? Some of these university professors have serious cases of stick-up-the-ass, they act so controlling you know there's some personal issues at play.

I had one professor who wouldn't allow laptops in class. She would type the class notes on a laptop of her own that was projected for us to see, but we had to hand write it. She wouldn't even email the notes to anyone. After the first class I knew I was dropping it, but I walked up to the front and brought out my phone and snapped a pic of the notes and loudly told everyone to email me if they wanted a copy.

 

[Schfifty Five]

None of that has anything to do with whether the student is in class or not.

Several classes in college I basically sat home reading the book and teaching myself. I'd show up for the rare homework turn-ins and I'd show up for exams and pass them.

If I'm paying for it and I'm nailing the grades, then the instructor can lick my furry butt crack before I listen to him bullshit some stupid reason why I need to be wasting my time sitting in his classroom.

You're thinking to narrow-mindedly. While you may have done well w/o going to class, there were probably 9 other students who didn't do as well. Ok I know that's very broad and generalizing, but my point is that there are studies done out there that show going to class can only HELP you get better scores/grades. Therefore, why wouldn't the Uni want to implement a policy to encourage have students go to class more?

 

[SheHateMe]

So go get a job writing for the paper if you think you can do better. :hmm:

What a compelling defense.

 

[Uppsala9496]

None of my classes ever required attendance. Some professors would have quizzes in class which comprised something like 5-10% of your overall grade to ensure attendance. Others didn't give a crap.
One semester in Sweden I went to 2 classes the entire time. First class of the term to get the syllabus and see what was going on, and the last class of the term to take the final exam.
The rest of the time I spent socializing.
Still walked away with a B average for the term.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Nope, picked MIS as a major since I really liked computers. I completed all of the MIS classes by early JR year. Then I was left with All the accounting, economics etc etc to do...Couldn't force myself to remain interested in that stuff. Hell, I walked out of my MIS Networking class without fully understanding DHCP...and I got an A!

I then dropped down to a part time student and started working at an MSP...I was learning faster at job by getting certs and getting hands on experience so I opted to "drop out" of college and go the certs route. That job turned into a career, although at a different company, and I'm happy where I am now.

My college failed me, not saying it's worthless for everyone but it was for me.

Sounds like all you needed to do was tough it out for another year to get your bachelor's degree.

 

[CountZero]

You're thinking to narrow-mindedly. While you may have done well w/o going to class, there were probably 9 other students who didn't do as well. Ok I know that's very broad and generalizing, but my point is that there are studies done out there that show going to class can only HELP you get better scores/grades. Therefore, why wouldn't the Uni want to implement a policy to encourage have students go to class more?

Because they are "adults" who should be able to decide if going to class is needed or not. If you can't be bothered to attend the class and you need the extra help that's on you not the professor.

I don't think any of my undergrad classes had attendance requirements aside from the obvious stuff (like labs for science classes) but nothing for lectures. The only grad class with required attendance was a seminar with a roundtable discussion every week so it only worked if you attended.

 

[werepossum]

wait, your grade is dependent on your attendance in 'murica?

Wasn't in engineering.

 

[PowerYoga]

skipped every single day except for about 7 days in 1 of my classes, got an A for handing in a paper the professor didn't bother reading. Most worthless waste of time I've ever had.

 

[yottabit]

I have gripes about classes that have those kind of attendance policies, especially in higher level classes. A lot of my engineering classes towards the end were basically going over example homework problems, etc in class, where if you actually understood the material and already did the homework you basically didn't need to be there. Most professors were OK with this too, but there was always the occasional exception.

I get it if 100% of students were full time college students with nothing better to do, but in reality a lot of people need to work their way through college and being able to miss some classes means you can put in extra hours to graduate with less debt.

I even feel the same way about homework, to be honest. I've been in some classes that have a very high homework percentage or an arbitrary "Miss more than 2 homework assignments and each additional missed assignment is a grade letter off your average" type of thing. I think classes with high homework percentages are really just a way to prop things up for students who can't perform well on tests.

Now that I think about it, I think I actually did more homework in the classes that only had a 10% homework grade than the classes that had 20-30%. Because in the class with 10% homework the tests were REALLY hard and accounted for basically 90% of your grade.

There was a period of time where I dropped down to part-time status in school and explained to my professors early on that I was working full-time, and may have to miss a class occasionally if job responsibilities get in the way. One of my professors understood but I actually ended up having to drop out and later retake a humanities course because another Professor wouldn't look past the 3 absence rule.

Also, I don't buy the "College is way more work than high school" line from the OP's article unless you really went to either an underprivileged high school or didn't take advantage of everything that was offered to you (more plausible). Coming from an AP courseload in high school, I remember being so afraid of how college would be. Well I ended up testing out of some Freshman classes and working a lot of extra hours because it was a breeze. Sophomore year was moderately challenging but nothing I would say "10x harder than high school" about.

I think the OP's article author really just has the same old entitlement problem that's running rampant in society. They seem to be a victim of cognitive dissonance and trying to rationalize reasons why it's OK to skip the classes they aren't interested in, while at the same time passing judgement on those who may have to skip classes for legitimate reasons and/or feel better about themselves because they may not skip as much as other people.

 

[kranky]

The fortunate few who need never attend class and still get good grades - why don't they test out of classes and save thousands of dollars in tuition?

 

[Scarpozzi]

7 allowed absences is a joke. They shouldn't have anything to do with the final grade either.

 

[pmv]

whoops fixed!

I was assuming you meant they had 99 questions of the order of "what is 2+5?" and then one like "Provide an original solution to Fermat's Last Theorem".

Extremely easy to get a pass-mark, nearly impossible to get 100% on.

 

[marvdmartian]

First world problem, for sure!

Sleep? You can sleep when you're dead! Or 30! Or after your kids have all been born, and lived 5 months, dammit!!

Hell, I went through Navy nuclear power school (24 weeks of brain stuffing, equivalent to 2+ years of college), and lived on 4 hours of sleep, most nights. These kids nowadays are made of pretty wimpy stuff!