I have missed so many classes since beginning college! This is my first semester. There’d be days I have a 5PM class and I be too tired to actually attend the evening class, or look at the time and realize it’s past time and I just don’t end up going! I know the easy thing would be to say “Just go to class!” but some of my professors are quite low level for me and I feel like I wont miss anything if I don’t go. Does anyone else relate to this problem?! What could I do to help motivate me to attend my low level classes?
Set an alarm so you’re forced to realize it’s time to leave for class.
If you continue this trend, low exam grades will probably become the motivation to go. (For real – many of my professors tell us every semester that attendance has historically correlated with good grades in their class.)
How were your grades first semester? If they weren’t 100% A’s, perhaps there is something in the class that you ARE missing.
I really have no sympathy for students who don’t go to class. My kids never missed class when they were in k-12 and don’t skip classes in college. Recently my daughter had the flue (diagnosed at the health center and everything) and she only missed each class once and some not even that (school had a power outage so some were cancelled). When a hurricane hit last fall, she didn’t miss any classes because she was the last to leave school and the first to return.
We’re paying a lot for college. Why miss classes you are paying for? Why not take classes that challenge you?
Even if the work isn’t hard -what about announcements? Test dates etc… Do you have to ask your classmates fill you in all the time? If you do -it is obnoxious to keep doing it repeatedly. Maybe that will motivate you. You don’t want to be a jerk. I sit in front on someone who comes in late all the time then asks me what she missed. It is irritating
Could you give yourself some kind of reward for going? Like putting off watching a TV show or playing a game until after you go to class? Then you will have something to look forward to when you get back from class.
https://www.amazon.com/College-Success-Guaranteed-Rules-Happen/dp/1610480422
This is a really easy book to read with straightforward advice. The first rule is GO TO CLASS. In other words “show up.” Ask yourself, do you really want a degree? If you do, then you simply have to show up and do what it takes to get one.
Woody Allen once said that 80% of life is showing up.
OK, maybe not the best example of a life coach, but his point is valid.
Why are you so very tired that you can’t get to class? When was your last physical? Could you have mono? A healthy 18 year old should not be so tired that a 5 pm class represents a huge challenge.
Let’s talk about those “low level for you” professors. Honestly, as a teacher, I would find it very insulting to hear an 18 year old kid pronounce I was below him and that my class was unworthy of his time.Yet you’re not capable of telling time and knowing it’s time to get to class? Or of setting an alarm to ensure that you know what time it is?
I think you need to take a long hard look at the reason you’re in college. Do you have career goals? If so, then they’re looking for a degree for a reason… they expect you to acquire a base of knowledge, along with the maturity, to show up for work and do the job they’ll hire you to do. If you’re unsure of career goals, if you’re thinking of college as a way station on the way to adulthood, then I think it may be a very expensive learning experience.
Well, it’s going to be embarrassing if you end up getting a bad grade in those “low level” classes. Since the content isn’t motivating you, how about finding some other reason to attend - make friends with someone in the class, get to know the “low level prof” better, give yourself a reward after you attend.
Well I hope you don’t enter the working world like that. May as well learn now. Good luck.
Come back and let us know your GPA at the end of this semester.
“What could I do to help motivate me to attend my low level classes?”
One thing that might motivate you is if you get bad grades one semester, and you get terrified into working harder.
What the consequences are of a semester of bad grades is hard to say. This might depend upon how bad the grades are, and whether you have a merit scholarship that requires a certain GPA to maintain the scholarship. I have known a small number of people who have flunked out of university in spite of being obviously very capable of mastering the work.
In some fields of study (math is an obvious example) slacking off in the earlier classes is likely to lead you to not fully understanding the material and in turn lead to having difficulty in higher level classes.
I am wondering if you should be talking to counseling services at your university. They must have seen this problem before and should have some good suggestions regarding how you could handle it.
My daugther was a math major and never went to her Calc 2 classes because she thought it was beneath her. She ended up with a B because she missed quizzes because i assume she didn’t know about them.
- Set alarms for your classes on your phone
- Schedule classes for when you know you are awake for them.
- Decide if you can take a CLEP exam if these classes are too easy
- Talk to the counseling center about depression if you cannot motivate yourself
- Read this book: “How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less” by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.
- How did your plan work out last semester? Did you get good grades?
- if you didn’t get good grades, then you have to change something, and the easiest thing is to go to class.
- Are you in the right major?
In the future, try to plan your schedule around the times you prefer. Stay near the classrooms and don’t go rest if you can’t count on being mature enough to get yourself to class.
Can I ask again… when was the last time you had a physical?
I feel like this may be related to what you wrote in another post you responded to. Skipping classes generally leads to bad outcomes so I think you may want to consider strongly how you can handle this. While college professors may not put as much emphasis on attendance as they do in HS your absence will be noticed and you will likely miss key information. You also have a tendency to lose interest in the course when they don’t go to class and forget things like tests, quizzes, projects etc. Just because it’s “lower level” doesn’t mean you won’t flunk the course.
At one point in your college career, going to class is going to matter a lot. You’re going to want to set the good habits now and take advantage of the “easy classes” that aren’t challenging enough.
Do you want to go to graduate school? Make the deans list? Participate in the honors college? Or even better, what opportunities can you get by knowing your professors? If your profs know you, and you excel in your classes, that’s a lot better than someone who obviously doesn’t care.
I’ll tell you this. I didn’t go to my classes the majority of my first year. I got a lot of Cs, and that’s a big regret because it hurt my future in more ways than I could have imagined. Don’t be me. Go to class.
You are avoiding classes and making excuses for doing so. College is a big adjustment, and it is time for you to get serious. It is part of growing up.
You have to understand this. NO ONE AT SCHOOL CARES IF YOU GO TO CLASS. That’s it. Really. It’s all on you. So grow up, learn to get out of bed when the alarm goes off, and GO TO CLASS. There is no way around it.
Hope your semester goes well!
I would be worried about OP if the only data point was based on being tired - there may be a scheduling issue, or an underlying health issue. But when the suggestion is made that the teacher/subject matter is not advanced enough, that tells me there is an attitude issue in play as well.
A really good life lesson here: sometimes we have to do things we don’t particularly want to do, because they are stepping stones toward something we DO want to do. In this case, going to class gets you the grades to get a degree to get a decent job and/or get you into graduate school if that’s your next step after your undergraduate. If your parents are paying for you education and you aren’t going to class, just think how thrilled an employer will be when you are that cavalier with the company’s money.
A few of my professors actually announced to us on the first day of class that this was a “low level class”, and she is the center of many random stories told in class and discussions on random unrelated topics to the class subject. That is the reason I refer to these classes as “low level” and feel unmotivated to go. Right now I am maintaining straight A’s in these classes because as soon as something is assigned I do it thoroughly and turn it in, I email my professors making sure I am completing each assignment to their liking, and so forth. These classes don’t even take role. Before college, I was taking several Advanced Placement classes and the work was simply much more challenging. So now it is in fact disappointing that I was expecting so much out of my college classes only to find they are so laid back and uncaring, it is tough going to class just to roll my eyes at my teachers constantly asking obvious, elementary questions such as “what does it mean to be creative?” " what is an idea?" " what does opportunity mean?" We are in college and need to use our prior knowledge to build on, in order to excel in our fields of interest.
I guess when you feel like you’ve had the best teachers you’ll ever have (my high school AP professors), every other teacher thereafter couldn’t match up to them.