<p>^ Stop making excuses, go to class.</p>
<p>Holy cow, yawn... then why did you sign up for a 3 hour class? By the way I'm guessing that it meets ONCE a week. It's VERY important to show up for those classes- those professors are in there for all 3 hours with the students, not in short bursts. Give them some slack but at least showing up.</p>
<p>I used to have 8:30 AM language class and I couldn't always help but get there late. My teacher would use to close the door and lock it from the outside so I couldn't get in. Eventually she did let me in... only to proceed to scold in me in that language in front of everyone. I did understand what she said... but.. wow. I never showed up late again.</p>
<p>Excuses are for losers.</p>
<p>Can and should are very different things.</p>
<p>Of course, if I reprioritize things, I can make it to each and every class on-time. However, whether or not I should do it is another case.</p>
<p>The more and effort you make to not be late to things, the less you get done - as that usually involves spacing out events and adding ten minutes of padding here and there to ensure that while there is a good chance of getting there a bit early, there is an extremely slim chance of being late. They add up, and eventually, you lose over 10% of the day.</p>
<p>What about sleeping and such? Well, getting a sufficient amount has higher priority than a class that can usually be "replaced" by friend's notes + reading + OH.</p>
<p>It's for reasons such as this that many trendy companies don't care when you show up to and leave work, as long as you complete the deadlines and do more than a certain minimum amount of work per week.</p>
<p>yea, do those trendy companies also let you use the work that other people did to take credit for as your own? aka your friend's notes?</p>
<p>10% of the day is 2.4 hours, or 144 minutes. You think it would take you 144 minutes per day to make sure you were on time to class?</p>
<p>I have 3 classes back-to-back starting at 8 am. I commute to college and it takes me 48 minutes to get there in the morning, and 1 hour to get home. I have to wake up at 6 am, take the train, transfer to the subway, then walk to get to class, and yet i'm always on time and never accidentally miss class. So I think it's kinda funny how some people who basically have to roll outta bed and walk 5 mins can't make it on time :)</p>
<p>for the record, I do miss classes, but because I choose to skip them to do something else, not by accident...so I don't have a perfect attendance record.</p>
<p>It's quite simple - it's about how much time you prepare. Say I have a class at 8:00am. I roll out of bed a few minutes late and see that it's 7:50am. I get dressed, etc. On my way there, I trip and spend a bit to get up. By the time I get there, it's 8:02am. Yet, I allowed twice the amount of time of my commute.</p>
<p>Of course, the longer the commute, the more room there is for things to go wrong, but if you scale up accordingly, little things tend to affect the "padding" little. Eg. if your plan allows you to arrive 20min early, something unexpected that takes up 5min is almost insignificant.</p>
<p>Though, it definitely all boils down to time management. If all other variables are kept the same and I woke up at 6am for the 8am class, there'd never be a problem. Issue is - I wouldn't - I'd be like... ah heck, I can get a couple hours more sleep. Oh noes, it's 8:20am! So yeah, no excuse there, but still something to think about.</p>
<p>A common problem I have here is with the buses being late. They can sometimes be up to 20min late on a route that usually takes 1.5hr for a run. Though, they're on-time just as often. When you need to transfer, a late bus can cause you to miss one. End result - transportation takes 1hr longer than you expected.</p>
<p>@ 21 & 22:</p>
<p>You guys underestimate how much I absolutely abhor walking into class late. :)</p>
<p>Not to mention, when you walk in late, you leave a personal impression on the professor when he or she sees your face. When you're not there, you don't leave much of an impression, other than the technical "he wasn't in class" impression of your absence.</p>
<p>Anyways, this ain't an excuse. An excuse is something you say to cover something up. I'm just stating the simple fact that I don't bother going to class if I'm going to be late. I can even think of a few times where I got to school and stood right outside the classroom door, only to decide I don't want to annoy the teacher by walking in late.</p>
<p>
I can relate to that. The few occasions I have been absent from a class have been a result of my own choice.</p>
<p>If I see that I will arrive late, I skip the class and do something productive for that class like go to the library to read any assigned text. After that, it is just a matter of going to a professor during office hours and asking questions while at the same time showing that I am not clueless about the material I may have missed.</p>
<p>Either way, the point should be to keep these instances to a minimum. Professors should clear questions and get deeper into the material through a lecture, but this happens best when students arrive on time and prepared, not waddling in selfishly on their own accord. Just be on time!</p>
<p>
[quote]
@ 21 & 22:</p>
<p>You guys underestimate how much I absolutely abhor walking into class late.</p>
<p>Not to mention, when you walk in late, you leave a personal impression on the professor when he or she sees your face. When you're not there, you don't leave much of an impression, other than the technical "he wasn't in class" impression of your absence.</p>
<p>Anyways, this ain't an excuse. An excuse is something you say to cover something up. I'm just stating the simple fact that I don't bother going to class if I'm going to be late. I can even think of a few times where I got to school and stood right outside the classroom door, only to decide I don't want to annoy the teacher by walking in late.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Your deluding yourself, you don't want to walk in late because you feel embarrassed that people see your coming in late. </p>
<p>Your rationalizing about leaving a "personal impression" if you come in late is moronic. Stop being late and if you are, the teacher will see you at least showed up and didn't blow it off.</p>
<p>Being late just screwed me over - I have a class at 8, right now actually, and I got there on time. So I walk into class, and I notice the prof isn't standing in the front and lecturing at usual, he's walking around and people are handing him stuff. So I ask the girl next to me what's going on, and she's like, "oh, he's just collecting the assignments" and I'm like....huh? I didn't even know we had to write a paper since he assigned it the first 5 mins of last class and I was late and missed it, figured we didn't do anything the first 5 mins so I didn't bother asking anyone. I would rather him think I skipped his class then simply didn't do the assignment, so I walked out. I really really really hope he didn't see me walk in, sit down and walk right out a minute later, because that would be so embarassing. He's a nice guy, but I can tell he's pretty sharp and picks up on things. I guess I'll email him the paper today and say I was "sick". Really hope he didn't notice me, he was preoccupied, but it's a small class.</p>
<p>schedule your classes better next time</p>
<p>I think its important to be on time to class and show up obviously but there's no sense in being self-righteous about it. </p>
<p>The thing about lecture classes is that they're easy to skip but since they're lecture based it's clearly important to be present to hear the lecture. Still, if you're able to keep up with the material (as the OP implies) or you're happy with you're performance than just keep doing what you're doing.</p>
<p>Personally, I would say if your going to miss any more than the first quarter of class it's not worth showing up because it will be extremely awkward and you probably would end up lost for most of the class. As for a work ethic, I think it better to work smarter not necessarily harder.</p>
<p>The importance of being on time is not being able to spend 5 more minutes at your job, rather it's a signal. It's a signal to other people that you're serious about rules and also you respect other people's time. You say want to make connections... but if you interrupt the class by going in when the professor's making an important PowerPoint presentation then I doubt you'll find many friends. </p>
<p>If you're always 5 minutes late then why not just leave 5 minutes earlier? That's what other people will think too.</p>
<p>Edit: If the buses are always late and unpredictable then there's probably little you can do for a 8:00AM class than to wake up at 6. I guess the other option is next term make your classes start at 12:00. That way you can leave early and study in the library.</p>
<p>I highly doubt many other students would take umbrage over another kids' attendance record, and if they do, they need to take another look at their own priorities. As for the professor (this is particularly true if the class is one where attendance isn't taken) many think that if a student signs up for a class then it doesn't make sense for a student to not show up. If they don't, then that's the students issue.</p>
<p>As for college being like work, while I concede that makes for a neat analogy, it's not true. At a job your decision whether or not to show up can effect workplace productivity, which affects the company, your boss, coworkers, etc. In college, your decision whether or not to show up to class affects you and since you're the one who chose not to show up you have to accept the potential consequences. Nothing the OP has mentioned indicates his tardiness or lack of attendance has affected the quality of life of his classmates, or his professor.</p>
<p>Actually, showing up late and not showing up at all also affects the class. In small discussion-based classes, the people present change the dynamic of the class, and if you are not there to contribute your ideas and derivations then the class changes. If there's a class of 15 people and 10 of them decide not to show up and the professor had scheduled an in-depth discussion of a text, she only has 5 people to discuss it with. It changes the class dynamic. And when you come in late, you disturb the class and sometimes the professor, who may lose her train of thought, etc. when you walk in.</p>
<p>It's rude to be late and if you find yourself consistently late, the best thing to do is start leaving 10 minutes earlier so you get there on time.</p>
<p>In any case...I used to skip classes more often as a freshman and by senior year I wasn't missing any classes unless I was violently ill. College classes only meet 2-3 times a week and you can miss a lot if you miss one class. Even in classes where the professor doesn't take attendance, they expect you to show up. If they didn't they wouldn't hold the class, or it would be an online class or something!</p>
<p>get your act together and get to class on time... it is annoying to be late but it's better than showing up one out of five times</p>
<p>I'm with MPM5236. Set the alarm ten minutes earlier if you have to.</p>
If you rarely attend class then college isn’t for you. Perhaps you should take a break? If you care so much about learning the material as you say, why don’t don’t show up everyday for lectures? What’s the point? Just go to class, late or not.
@Esmclennon Welcome to CC!! Good points, but this thread is 7 1/2 years old. Hopefully by now OP has graduated college and found a job that fits his/her lifestyle.