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.
You’ve just completed your first semester in college which is supposed to be a transition time to adjust to college life. It will definitely get more challenging as you progress and attendance will become an important factor in you comprehending the material being taught in class. Now is a great time to develop good learning habits and structure so that when your semester gets more rigorous you will be able to handle it well.
Right now you are paying to attend college. It is not free. The motivation and commitment to your academic goals has to come from within. No one can make that effort for you. The college years are a time for you to transition from a high school student to an independent adult who is capable of making good decisions for yourself.
It doesn’t matter if you find the professor or the class interesting. You are shifting the blame, again. It is your responsibility now to manage your life. As the saying goes, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. You need to turn this around now or I fear you won’t make it in your upper level classes. You can do it!
So at age 18, you’ve already had the very best teachers you’ll ever have? How incredibly sad and presumptuous all at the same time.
Is this the right college for you?
Are you taking the right classes for you?
Wow…it must be a burden to be so much smarter than everyone else in the room. You’re obviously wasting your time in college since you already know everything.
Try online classes next semester.
I am in the ‘total-exhaustion-from-the-flu’ state and have still been attending classes. One of the lectures is pointless (and I am a straight A/A+ student), but it falls in between two other classes and is in a room directly adjacent to my previous class, so I don’t really have a good reason not to attend.
Some ideas:
- Don’t skip class if there are in-class assignments or attendance for a grade.
- Don’t skip class if your professor covers material in a different way from other course materials available or adds on material.
I, personally, skipped classes occasionally (early in the semester)/semi-regularly (later on) for my physics 1 class, but I did have 100% (or 100% plus extra credit) on every assignment and the professor told me I didn’t need to attend because he didn’t think I would gain from his lectures.
Classes are important because professors like to hear themselves talk…er…lecture out of the book. Yes classes are a waste of time, but lecturing is what gives professors a purpose in life. They are dictators with a PhD, so if they say to come to class, you need to come to class. I found that missing classes can have consequences. If you have a borderline C and you don’t come to class, you get a C. If you have a borderline C and you come to class like a good schoolboy/girl, chances are it’ll be a B.
“If you have a borderline C and you come to class like a good schoolboy/girl, chances are it’ll be a B.”
If you are in your final semester of undergrad as a math major, you take an art history class that you need to graduate, in turns out that you have absolutely no ability at all in the class (like, you are REALLY bad) and you get a solid F, if you attended every class and always sat in the middle of the front row, then the professor might take one look at you, immediately recognize you, and give you a D and a pleasant chat about how he was bad at math while apologizing for thinking of giving you an F. If you hadn’t come to class you might have had a bigger problem.
totally hypothetically of course.
There are a lot of reasons to go to class. If you don’t want to go, then why are you paying for university?
@kbarnett7 The whole point of college is to attend class and work hard, with some fun mixed in between everything. When you miss a class, it brings you down because then you have to either get notes from a friend or try to catch up on what you missed. And just like @mom2boys said, the professors don’t care if you miss out on a class.
So, set an alarm and go to class, it’s as simple as that. Going to bed earlier would help as well. Now, missing an 8 - 9 am class compared to an evening class sounds a little inept to me.
It really comes down to one thing, how badly you want a degree in the end. That’s what you are really paying for. Divide your tuition bill by the number of class hours in a term and you will see how much money you are blowing everytime you skip one.
It sounds like your trying to justify why you don’t go. You don’t need someone or something external to motivate you. That is your responsibility as an adult in college. Your in college go or don’t go but don’t complain if there are consequences.
Ok you took AP classes. Did you look into schools to see what you can test out of with your AP credits? Can you take honors versions of the required prerequisites?
Can you talk to professors that teach more advanced classes and tell them the low level classes are too easy and ask if they can allow you into the harder classes without the prerequisites?