You check your phone. Forty-six minutes left. You look up at your professor, who is speaking on something that is, probably, very important, but you have absolutely no clue what they are talking about, because you missed the start of the current thread of conversation. Normally, you’re one of the most attentive people in the room, but this particular lecture is not going your way. Suddenly, last night’s late study session starts to catch up with you. You fight and fight as your eyelids begin to close, and you almost lose once or twice. Finally, a small spark kicks up in you, and you shoo away that sleep. You check your phone. Forty-five minutes left.
The number of times I’ve asked myself, or I’ve heard classmates within earshot ask out loud, “Why did I show up to class today?” is exceedingly high. I’ve seen some of the brightest, most attentive students in my classes have “off days.” No one is safe from them; they appear inevitable when you consider how much college students typically have on their plate. Unfortunately, however, students at NC State have few options when it comes to rest.
For a university that constantly loves to go on and on about how amazing a learning environment they have created for students, this kind of detrimental and draining practice of mandatory attendance policies sticks out. Many course syllabi are built on attendance policies that offer little to no “grace” to worn-out workers. “Miss this number of days,” says the syllabus, “and I will start taking you down entire letter grades. Miss this number of days, and you’re done for.”
This kind of restrictive behavior is the exact reason that so many professors often have mindless “zombies” sitting in their classrooms, counting every second until the end of class.
Now, I’m sure many faculty members, and maybe even a few students, would argue that no good can come from doing away with the current form of attendance policies. However, I am not arguing for a total removal of attendance policies.
Rather, I am arguing for a minimization of attendance policies. For example, exam days should still require mandatory attendance, and all absentees would need proper documentation. Also, important class activities that would be impossible to post on Moodle, such as movie screenings and field trips, would also require mandatory attendance unless the absence is excused. This “two missed days and you’re out of here” system, though, does nothing but drain students of whatever energy they might have left and leave them resenting their classes even more.
In fact, I argue that giving students more freedom to take days off would benefit everyone involved. Students would then be able to rest and recover after long periods of work without the threat of immediate and direct academic consequence. Professors would actually see more energy in the classroom, rather than having to stare at a bunch of zoned out, going-through-the-motions students staring right back at them. Most importantly, this sought-after perfect learning environment that NC State and so many other universities strive to achieve would finally be within reach.
Others would argue that this is nothing but whining from myself and other students who believe this, and that we should just tough it out and attend class. They think that students would abuse this newfound freedom and never show up to classes. This is not the right way to think about this issue.
If a student does take too many days off, and suffers the negative academic consequences of doing so, then that will mentally reinforce the importance of regular attendance. However, most students, including myself, would still attend most of their classes, because they realize that they, or their family, are paying thousands of dollars for them to be here, and skipping classes would be damaging to their academic performance and a waste of that tuition money. Almost all college students are old enough to be classified as adults, so it’s time to stop this hand-holding and allow us make our own choices on how often we attend classes.
College is a tiring place. Students balance so many things, and have so many assignments to get done, that exhaustion is inevitable. By completely reworking the average attendance policy, NC State can actually give students more of the responsibility they deserve and the consequences that come with their actions. This extremely burdening current version of an attendance policy is not effective, however, and needs to be fixed immediately.
