Life is More Important Than Class Attendance

As the days grow longer and warmer, the thought of sitting in a fluorescently lit classroom can make it hard to want to go to school. But what are students to do — simply skip class when the going gets tough? Most days, school should take priority, but personal and professional goals outside the University should also not be ignored.

Recently, I came to campus in the morning fully intending to attend my two classes of the day. First, however, I had to work a morning shift at my on-campus job. By the end of my shift, all of my plans had changed and I skipped both classes. I am confident that my time that day was much better spent outside of class, even if it negatively affected my grades.

For the sake of discussion, views on class attendance may be broken into two camps: the conventional and the novel approach.

While the conventional approach demands that all good students attend class regardless of their personal well-being, the novel approach places personal well-being above all, including attendance and participation.

Both approaches are flawed. Students should instead focus on the middle ground: Be as academically active as possible, but don’t be afraid to focus on your life outside of school — even if it means your attendance occasionally takes a hit.

In a 2014 “College Teaching” study titled “Why Students Do and Do Not Attend Classes: Myths and Realities,” researchers gathered information from a questionnaire filled out by 333 undergraduate students. Some of the “myths” around student characteristics commonly used to explain absences were gender, class standing, age, employment and number of credit hours. Instead, researchers found that the higher the GPA of the students, the fewer absences they had, though researchers were unable to determine whether “better attendance might help produce better grades, or the desire for better grades might motivate better attendance, or both.”

However, the student characteristics are only half the picture. Attendance is just as likely to be affected by class characteristics, such as size, instructor, subject, etcetera. Students are less likely to attend courses with large class sizes on subjects they do not care about — just talk to anyone who's taken Astronomy 110.

Many MSU students seemed to base the amount they attend class on grades. Environmental studies student Sander Holguin said he never skips more than a class allows. “It kind of depends on what class,” he said. “Only if they don’t do attendance — but if they do attendance, I’ll go.”

Sociology student Xel-ha Martinez concurred, but said that skipping class takes self-control. “Skip class if you’re responsible about it, but if it’s something where you’ll definitely lose points, don’t do it,” she said.

English student Drake Wilkes had a more laissez-faire approach. “I skip class sometimes because I’m too tired and lazy,” he said. “I’ll skip like once every other week.”

However, visiting Assistant Professor Stephen Paur noted a phenomenon that he’s seen in his classrooms. “Sometimes when students miss class several days in a row, they’re scared to come back because they think they’ve fallen so far behind,” Paur said. Perhaps one of the most important things to remember when you miss a class is that you can always catch up, and it’s better to return to class than avoid it.

Finding balance at school requires us to be honest with ourselves about when we should attend class and when we should skip. Be responsible, but skip school when you need to — and don’t feel guilty or worried about it.