The Tip
You can miss classes once in a while, but you have to be very strategic about it. If you miss a lot of classes, your grades suffer.

The Story
There’s always the chance that you’re sitting in bed, blowing off class and reading this tip. If you are, at least you’re doing some reading—be proud. Deciding whether to go to class or not is the hardest choice you’ll face in your college career—that and whether or not to borrow clean underwear from your roommate when you run out. The attendance question regularly stares you in the eye—every morning when the alarm goes off (assuming you’ve even set it). Deciding whether or not to go to class is a new freedom that you have in college; in most cases, you’re free of parental supervision, attendance offices and questioning principals (but some professors do take attendance). If you choose to, you can sleep late, watch TV all day, play video games, enjoy a four-hour breakfast at the buffet, go to the gym, go to a party, hang out with your boyfriend or girlfriend, chat online, or just lay in bed imagining all those things that you could be doing—which can be exhausting, leading you to fall asleep again and miss your afternoon classes too.

The choice to go or not to go is yours, but with every choice comes consequences. In this case, the consequence could be missing essential material, missing a pop quiz with no make-up offered, missing material that will likely be the key to the next exam, losing out on extra credit awarded for simply attending class, getting poor grades and failing out of school. From time to time you will find yourself unable to make it to class. It happens. Just make sure that you can at least do the following to cover yourself:

 

  1. Some professors will award credit just for attending class. Make sure to find out your professors’ attendance policy. Ask your professor or teaching assistant if the information is not in your syllabus.
  2. Get notes from a friend in your class. The only catch is that you have to actually go to class so that you can make a friend who can share notes with you. And then, when your new friend is out of class, you’ll be the one sharing notes.
  3. If you should get sick or miss classes because of reasons beyond your control, you have options. You can drop a class before it counts against you. Talk to your professors and your academic advisor—but be sure to do something. A dropped class doesn’t typically count against your grade point average. An F can and will hurt you.
  4. If you find that you’re consistently missing class because you’re nursing a hangover, or that you’re still partying in the morning while your class is in session, there’s a pretty good chance that you need some professional treatment. That’s not normal.
  5. If you find that you’re missing so many classes that you forget where your classes are and which days you even have them, ask yourself this question: Why in the hell am I here if I’m never going to classes? I might be better off buying a Ferrari with my tuition money.