If you are like most people in college, you probably skip class. Maybe not all the time, maybe not every class, but there is likely some class that, for whatever reason, you choose not to show up to every day. I will admit to doing that. I have a five hour math class that meets at 12:30 every day. I always skip the Thursday class so that I can eat lunch with some of my friends, but I show up Fridays for recitation in case I missed anything important that Thursday. I took this class last year also, so missing material is not too big of a problem with me. I show up 4 times a week, skip just one period; everything looks good.
Recently, I have noticed a disturbing pattern in class attendance. Last week I skipped Thursday AND Friday because I had something I thought was more important to do (something that I can't even remember...). This week I missed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Wednesday I just didn't feel like going to class. Friday I was frantically called by one of my friends, who apparently was in dire need of a math major. Some big assignment due or something. So, being the good friend and humanitarian that I am, I skipped class to help out. I also skipped English ; ) Hope we didn't do anything...
The point is that on each of these days, I felt like there was something more pressing to do than attend a lecture where attendance is not mandatory. Did I make the right decisions? Some of them seem stupid now. This past Monday when I went to turn in my homework from the week before, I found that my teacher had added an assignment to those that we were turning in. He had told the class on the Thursday before. Quite possibly something like that will happen this time also, when I walk into class in two days. I am not saying that skipping class is a bad thing. Sometimes it can do wonders for your stress levels and give you time to work on important projects. Just be aware of how much you are doing it. Lectures are not just free periods. They can greatly improve your understanding of the class, since teachers often cover the difficult material in depth during class. Teachers also announce changes to the syllabus in class, many of which they neglect to post on the class web page. Try to bear all this in mind next time when you are thinking about skipping.
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I can attest to the teacher telling us things part. I have a friend on my floor who is in my psychology class with me. So every Tuesday and Thursday we will meet up after my physics lecture and be like, "Do you really want to go to this class?" We will then think over the options of not going to class, what it will do for our grades, and what might be covered in class. More likely than not, skipping will do nothing against us since the notes are available online and the teacher goes straight from the notes while teaching. Well, the other night as we were hanging out in his room, I decided to go to the psychology website to see when the first exam was. Lo and behold, the next exam was the next day. We essentially laughed some then freaked because we had missed the last few lectures. We then proceeded to study for the test and the next day went in and took it. I felt relatively comfortable after studying, except for the massive amounts of questions covering material we missed. Needless to say, we didn't do too hot, basically the same score. So lesson being learned, we are attending every one of those classes from now on. I hope this gives some other people a better perspective on what skipping can do against you. On the other hand, we all know that skipping morning classes can make you feel refreshed, but lectures are important, and cannot just be ignored.
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